France

This study of France examines the nation-building process of continual re-creation and re-invention over more than two hundred years. It explores the complex task of creating unity while reconciling diversity, be it regional, religious or cultural, in a nation profoundly divided since the Revolution. Divided into three sections covering the invention of French history, experience and identity, it seeks to integrate more conventional political history with an examination of nation-building from the margins and through manifold images and representations of the nation. Themes such as social conflict, civil war and revolution, identity and difference, gender, colonialism and decolonisation, religion, material and popular culture, and the devastation of war are examined in light of the evolution and continual reinvention of France. This new study will be of interest not only to students of modern and contemporary France, but also to those who want to understand the ways in which national identities are created and evolve within modern society.

ISBN 0340705701   Volumes 1 ISBN13 9780340705704 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 448 Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC   Published in London Imprint Hodder Arnold   Series ISSN 1754-594 Format Paperback   Series title Inventing the Nation Publication date 29 Aug 2008   Height (mm) 234 Library of Congress DC59   Width (mm) 156 DEWEY 305.800944   Spine width (mm) 13 DEWEY edition DC22   Academic level Undergraduate, Tertiary education, General Pages 272

		List of illustrations
		Chronology
Pt. I		Inventing French History
1		The French Revolution and the Nation 1789-1815
2		The Battle for the French Nation 1815-1940
3		Defeat and its Aftermath 1940-1944
4		Modern France 1944-2000
Pt. II		Inventing French Experience
5		French Society
6		Militarism and War
7		Revolution or Civil War
8		Colonies and Imperialism
Pt. III		Inventing French Identity
9		Cultural Representations
10		Religion and the French Republic
11		French Identity and Difference
		Conclusion
		Selected Further Reading
		Index

'A variable volume in an important new series edited by Keith Robbins, this effective book considers the way in which constructions of French identity have interacted with political contention. The result is a valuable reading of French history from the Revolutionary period on.' Jeremy Black, The Historical Association

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