Table of Contents

The "Longue Durée"
From the Old Regime to the Revolution
The Revolution
Napoleon Bonaparte
The Nineteenth Century
Vichy
Parallels: Past and Present

About the Author

David A. Bell is the author of four previous books, including the prize-winning The First Total War. Bell has taught European history at Yale, Johns Hopkins (where he served as Dean of Faculty in the School of Arts and Sciences) and is now Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Professor of History at Princeton. He has received numerous fellowships, including a Guggenheim. He writes regularly for a number of journals and magazines, and for eleven years
was a Contributing Editor of The New Republic.

Reviews

"David Bell is among America's foremost observers of France, and among its finest essayists. Like a stroll down a Paris side street, these pieces reveal delights at every turn. But taken as a whole, they leave a powerful impression of the monuments of France in all their splendor, beauty, tragedy, pathos, and profundity."--Derek McMahon, Dartmouth College
"Bell gives nonspecialist readers accessible introductions to the debates that make French historical studies such a vibrant arena for the exchange of political and cultural ideas...Bell's engagement with public audiences offers academic historians valuable strategies for sustaining the cultural influence of French historical studies."--H-France