History : France

The Extreme Right in France, 1789 to the Present surveys the history of a fascinating but contentious political and intellectual tradition. more...

Price: $38.95

The twentieth century brought fashion to the masses, as consumption spilled over its traditional social boundaries and individuals began to define themselves by what they bought and how they looked. The hairdressing profession provides a perspective on the evolution of mass consumer society in this era. more...

Price: $69.95

This is a study of modern French politics and history, discussing the five presidents from 1959 to the present - looking at similarities, the foreign policies they persued and domestic policies they practised. more...

Price: $39.95

The first ever account of how the fall of France to the Germans in 1940 affected the lives of ordinary French people. Using eyewitness accounts, Hanna Diamond tells a story of mass exodus, defeat, humiliation, and occupation - opening the way for the triumph of the Vichy regime under Marshal P--eacute--;tain. - ;Wednesday 12th June 1940. The Times reported 'thousands upon thousands of Parisians leaving the capital by every possible means, preferring to abandon home and property rather than risk even temporary Nazi domination'. As Hitler's victorious armies approached Paris, the French government abandoned the city and its people, leaving behind them an atmosphere of panic. Roads heading south filled with ordinary people fleeing for their lives with whatever personal possessions they could carry, often with no particular destination in mind. During the long, hard journey, this mass exodus of predominantly women, children, and the elderly, would face constant bombings, machine gun attacks, and even starvation. Using eyewitness accounts, memoirs, and diaries, Hanna Diamond shows how the disruption this exodus brought to the lives of civilians and soldiers alike made it a defining experience of the war for the French people. As traumatized populations returned home, preoccupied by the desire for safety and bewildered by the unexpected turn of events, they put their faith in Marshall P--eacute--;tain who was able to establish his collaborative Vichy regime largely unopposed, while the Germans consolidated. their occupation. Watching events unfold on the other side of the channel, British ministers looked on with increasing horror, terrified that Britain could be next. - ;The strength of Diamond's book is to convey the poignancy, drama and ambiguity of an experience that directly touched the lives of many more people than the Resistance ever did... her readable book superbly conveys the strange unreality of those hot summer days of 1940. - Julian Jackson, more...

Price: $37.00

While doing fieldwork in a village in east Madagascar that had suffered both heavy settler colonialism and a bloody anticolonial rebellion, Jennifer Cole found herself confronted by a puzzle. People in the area had lived through almost a century of intrusive French colonial rule, but they appeared to have forgotten the colonial period in their daily lives. more...

Price: $15.95