Publishing, the Rules of the Trade

Histoire de Vichy

François-Georges Dreyfus, Perrin, original edition, 1990, Coll. Bfm - Limoges

Historian specialized in France and Germany, Professor at the University of Strasbourg; François-Georges Dreyfus published Histoire de Vichy (Perrin, 1990) and immediately sparked off a debate with his peers because his analysis seemed to stress positive aspects of the Vichy government.  A reader, Gilbert Bloch, discovered numerous lengthy passages – dozens of pages – borrowed from other historical essays, which passages were not attributed to their authors in the acknowledgements. This discovery was made public. Historians defended François-Georges Dreyfus, claiming that he was the victim of a campaign aiming to delegitimize his approach to the Vichy period. But it was discovered that the author had been guilty of other instances of substantial plagiarism in at least two previous books… Some publishers and their authors, the victims of these unacknowledged quotations, took legal proceedings.