Here is an incomparably rich portrait of France in the years when the disparate elements that made up the fragmented kingdom of the ancien regime were forged into the modern nation. The survey begins with an exploration of national obsessions and attitudes. It considers the tendency to revolution and war, the preoccupation with the idea of a New Order and the deep strain of national paranoia that was to be intensified by the dramatic debacle of the Franco-Prussian War. Robert Tombs then investigates the structures of power and in Part Three he turns his attention to social identities, from the individual and family to the nation at large. When every aspect of the period has been put under the microscope, Robert Tombs draws them all into the broad political narrative that brings the book to its rousing conclusion. Bursting with life as well as learning, this is, quite simply, a tour de force.

Here is an incomparably rich portrait of France in the years when the disparate elements that made up the fragmented kingdom of the ancien regime were forged into the modern nation. The survey begins with an exploration of national obsessions and attitudes. It considers the tendency to revolution and war, the preoccupation with the idea of a New Order and the deep strain of national paranoia that was to be intensified by the dramatic debacle of the Franco-Prussian War. Robert Tombs then investigates the structures of power and in Part Three he turns his attention to social identities, from the individual and family to the nation at large. When every aspect of the period has been put under the microscope, Robert Tombs draws them all into the broad political narrative that brings the book to its rousing conclusion. Bursting with life as well as learning, this is, quite simply, a tour de force.

This famous work has a long-established reputation as a clear, accessible and authoratative account of this fascinating period.

The meaning of a painted portrait and even its subject may be far more complex than expected, Tamar Garb reveals in this book. She charts for the first time the history of French female portraiture from its heyday in the early nineteenth century to its demise in the early twentieth century, showing how these paintings illuminate evolving social attitudes and aesthetic concerns in France over the course of the century. The author builds the discussion around six canonic works by Ingres, Manet, Cassatt, Cézanne, Picasso, and Matisse, beginning with Ingres’s idealized portrait of Mme de Sennones and ending with Matisse’s elegiac last portrait of his wife. During the hundred years that separate these works, the female portrait went from being the ideal genre for the expression of painting’s capacity to describe and embellish “nature,” to the prime locus of its refusal to do so. Picasso’s Cubism, and specifically Ma Jolie, provides the fulcrum of this shift.

The causes of war have tended to attract more attention than the causes of peace, yet the two are intimately related, Indeed there was much talk of war during the unprecedentedly long periods of peace between the European great powers in the years 1815-1854 and again in 1871-1914, the Near Eastern crises of 1878 and 1887-8 being only two of the more notable examples. In the case of the latter, there occurred a spell of fatalistic and belligerent talk in both Berlin and Vienna which in many ways anticipated that which gripped those capitals by 1914. A study of the whole question of the best methods by which to defend and advance the national interest is often more illuminating on why wars were avoided that are studies of the documentation surrounding the Holy Alliance, the congress system or the Concert of Europe. It is clear that the Concert tended to become most active only after a war had already been fought, or when the powers had already decided that conflict was likely to prove too costly, dangerous and unpredicatable in its effects both at home and abroad. Thus the Russians twice advanced almost to the gates of Constantinople only to recoil at the implications of trying to obtain control of the Straits. Similarly, Habsburg thoughts of war were frequently neutralised by reminders of financial weakness. This valuable book will be welcomed by anyone wishing to understand the nature of European state relations in the nineteenth century. Professor Bartlett examines why major wars did happen and did not happen, with particular attention being paid to the events of 1914.

In this lively and stimulating study, Roger Magraw examines how the 19th-century French bourgeoisie struggled and eventually succeeded in consolidating the gains it made in 1789. The book describes the attempts of the bourgeoisie to remold France in its own image and its strategy for overcoming the resistance from the old aristocratic and clerical elites and the popular classes. Incorporating the most recent research on religion and anticlericalism, the development of the economy, the role of women in society, and the educational system, this work is the first to draw extensively on the new social history in its interpretation of events in 19th-century France.