August-Marie-Joseph-Jean Jaurès was born to middle class parents in the provincial town of Castres in the Languedoc. Initially a moderate, he became the leading French social democrat, the head of the French Socialist Party, and one of the most famous European progressives of his time. He vehemently opposed the emergence of European war in 1914 and died at the hands of an ultra-patriot assassin the day before France declared war on Germany. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Harvey Goldberg, The Life of Jean Jaures (Madison,WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), 6.
Record Data
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Exact
Type
Foreign
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Personal
