This book approaches the English Channel as a border which connected, as much as it separated, France and England in the eighteenth century.

This valuable reference is an authoritative guide to 20th century French thought. It considers the intellectual figures, movements and publications that helped define fields as diverse as history, psychoanalysis, film, philosophy, and economics.

Looking at decolonization in the conditional tense, this volume teases out the complex and uncertain ends of British and French empire in Africa during the period of ‘late colonial shift’ after 1945. Rather than view decolonization as an inevitable process, the contributors together explore the crucial historical moments in which change was negotiated, compromises were made, and debates were staged. Three core themes guide the analysis: development, contingency and entanglement. The chapters consider the ways in which decolonization was governed and moderated by concerns about development and profit. A complementary focus on contingency allows deeper consideration of how colonial powers planned for ‘colonial futures’, and how divergent voices greeted the end of empire. Thinking about entanglements likewise stresses both the connections that existed between the British and French empires in Africa, and those that endured beyond the formal transfer of power.

In the sixteenth century, Spain claimed the fabled New World, and a rash of explorers sailed there seeking riches and, most famously, a fountain of youth. Although France made inroads into Florida, ultimately the French, like the Spanish, failed to establish dominion over North America. Francis Parkman tells why. The first part of Pioneers of France in the New World deals with the attempts of the Spanish and the French Huguenots to occupy Florida; the second, with the expeditions of Jacques Cartier and Samuel de Champlain and French colonial endeavors in Canada and Acadia.