Redefining The French Republic

This text investigates continuity and change in contemporary French politics, society and culture. It draws on contributions that reflect a variety of methodological approaches, ranging from theoretical speculations and modelling to the interpretation of fieldwork data.

In this invaluable reference work, the world’s foremost authorities on France’s political, social, cultural, and intellectual history explore the history and meaning of the French Republic and the challenges it has faced. Founded in 1792, the French Republic has been defined and redefined by a succession of regimes and institutions, a multiplicity of symbols, and a plurality of meanings, ideas, and values. Although constantly in flux, the Republic has nonetheless produced a set of core ideals and practices fundamental to modern France's political culture and democratic life. Based on the influential Dictionnaire critique de la république, published in France in 2002, The French Republic provides an encyclopedic survey of French republicanism since the Enlightenment. Divided into three sections—Time and History, Principles and Values, and Dilemmas and Debates—The French Republic begins by examining each of France’s five Republics and its two authoritarian interludes, the Second Empire and Vichy. It then offers thematic essays on such topics as Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity; laicity; citizenship; the press; immigration; decolonization; anti-Semitism; gender; the family; cultural policy; and the Muslim headscarf debates. Each essay includes a brief guide to further reading. This volume features updated translations of some of the most important essays from the French edition, as well as twenty-two newly commissioned English-language essays, for a total of forty entries. Taken together, they provide a state-of-the art appraisal of French republicanism and its role in shaping contemporary France’s public and private life.

A short introductory history of the French Revolution which covers the social, economic and cultural, as well as the intellectual and political aspects.

This book chronicles the struggles of undocumented migrant women in France as they fight to become rights-bearing citizens, revealing how concepts of citizenship and nationality intersect with gender, sexuality, and immigration.

Mitchell believes that the history of the French Third Republic remains incomplete until one understands the German impact on France after the Franco-Prossian War. As the French groped unsteadily toward a redefinition of their national identity, they were constantly under the influence of the victorious German reich, indicating that the creation of a republican mentality cannot be explained in strictly French terms nor can its origins be traced solely from French sources. Originally published in 1979. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Undermined from above by economic globalization and European integration, and from below by the rise of identity politics, the French state has attempted to redefine its relationship to its citizens. Reinventing France examines the ways in which state action has endeavoured to promote social integration in an increasingly fragmented nation and has challenged traditional concepts of an indivisible Republic and universal citizenship rights in order to achieve the core republican ideals of freedom, equality and solidarity.

Much of the historiography on the age of democratic revolutions has seemed to come to a halt until recent years. Historians of this period have tried to develop new explanatory paradigms but there are few that have had a lasting impact. David A. Bell and Yair Mintzker seek to break through the narrow views of this period with research that reaches beyond the traditional geographical and chronological boundaries of the subject. Rethinking the Age of Revolutions brings together some of the most exciting and important research now being done on the French Revolutionary era, by prominent historians from North America and France. Adopting a variety of approaches, and tackling a wide variety of subjects, such as natural rights in the early modern world, the birth of celebrity culture and the phenomenon of modern political charisma, among others, this collection shows the continuing vitality and importance of the field. This is an important book not only for specialists, but for anyone interested in the origins of some of the most important issues in the politics and culture of the modern West.

This book, first published in 1975, examines the events of the French Second Republic, the themes of protest and repression in particular. It analyses how popular discontent is mobilised and becomes political protest and revolution, and how the machinery of government operates in a crisis situation.