Customer Reviews
Breathless, powerful overview of the long 19th century in France - By: Withnail67, 20 Sep 2008 
This is a major work of French history that follows on from the author's piecing anatomisation of the dynamics of the Occupation between 1940 & 1945. The subject matter here is considerably more substantial, the legacy of the French Revolutionin the `long' nineteenth century, from the rise of Napoleon to the close of the `belle époque' Political overviews open both sections of the book, & are taken at the gallop. There is, it goes without saying, enough material between the covers for a dozen books, & it is to Gildea's credit that his singular command of detail saves the breathless overviews of complex political orientations. He (just) carries the uninformed reader through.
What a subject...it spans the collapse of France's Napoleonic dreams of European domination, & nothing less than the nation's wrestling with competing imperatives of revolution, democracy, monarchism, & the power of the Church. Understandably, certain sections stand out. The discussion of the changing position of womenin French society was tantalising, as are the full implications & pervasive & caustic impact of the Dreyfus affair on every level of society. I could easily have read more on the confrontation with Britain over Fashodain the upper Nile that so nearly led to war; & the chapter which showed how France viewed itself via comparison with other European powers particularly compelling. It's tempting to suggests that perhaps following a single family through the period might have humanised a mass of data a little more.
But Gildea is loyal to his aims, & communicates the huge cultural power of the belle époque period, the society that was the crucible of modernism, where Picasso painted, which invented the detective story & the comic strip; the image of the young Sartre running to buy his weekly comic as a schoolboy was particularly vivid. Gildea is unequivocal - maybe subtly ironic? -in his belief that the blood sacrifice of 1914-1918 (which eclipsed the British & Empire death toll by many millions), acted as the final test of a France which had struggled so intensely to achieve national self-realisation.
This is a breathless, at times intimidating compilation, a starting point for many years of reading, & wholly necessaryin order to reach beyond the holiday home clichés to the resonant history of a major Western power.
French Impressionism, a cultural explanation - By: Stewart Murray McRorie, 07 Aug 2008 
If I were offering "France: culture, politics & society 1800-1900" as my specialist subject on Mastermind, before getting into the black chair what main source would I depend on? Well you could do worse than read Robert Gildea's book but I would not make it my sole choice.
The book isin two parts, 1799 to 1870 then the Franco-Prussian war up to 1914. The chapters are pithy with a lot of detail. They read as self contained essays, or perhaps lectures. The long - apparently never ending - story of centrifugal & centripetal politics, Paris as the root of all division or the source of national unity is told. And the divided French left, an enduring legacy where the game seems more than the consequences. For me it was well written but, frustratingly, only as far as it went. Such a wide-ranging book is of necessity impressionistic. Adding little cameos, & employing literature to reinforce analysis added momentum.
The main limitation was that only political challenges & social change within France were dealt with but these were paralleledin other countries, or states forming nations. Although Professor Gildea does make some passing comparative reference, I was constantly wondering how Germany, or Britain, or Italy comparedin many areas. What was specific, or special to France? Europe was changing massively, & was changing the world. France was part of this, not isolated, so comparisons beyond her borders are essential & relevant.
With this broad brush, he deals with themes, the ever-present challenge for the French - finding accommodation with themselves, how to employ the revolutionary ideals & live up to them, modernisation, industrialisation, class, religion, feminism, literature, coping with a superior culture that the world does not quite appreciate. The imposition of the French language & the invention of a French national identity, both occurring very latein the 20th century, were sketched. This is not a political or economic history, it is not a social history, it is an amalgam equating to a cultural explanation.
This is a book you can appreciate more than enjoy. It is for the curious, possibly the curious undergraduate, for those wanting orientation leading to specific political, social, diplomatic histories. It would have been helpful to have had a short bibliography. Having read Graham Robb's anthropology "The Discovery of France" & Rod Kedward's political history "La Vie En Bleu: France & the French Since 1900" Gildea's book fits well. Then there is Robert & Isabelle Tombs - "That Sweet Enemy." I would not sitin the Mastermind chair without having read all four.
