First published in 1977, France 1870-1914 combines an outline of events with an analytical treatment of the main political institutions and forces of the Third Republic, relating them to their social context. After an introductory narrative chapter, Dr Anderson discusses the social bases of politics, regional variations in political behaviour, parties and political leadership, and the parliamentary system. There are sections on the Republicans and Radicals, the Right, and the working-class movement, and a separate chapter is devoted to foreign and colonial policy. The success of the Third Republic as a working political system and a distinctive form of parliamentary democracy is emphasized. The author also provides a framework of interpretative ideas which makes the book stimulating as well as informative. This is a must read for scholars and researchers of French history and French politics.

This book provides a detailed account of the Third Republic in France between the outbreak and conduct of the First World War and the fall of Leon Blum's Front Populaire soon after Hitler's invasion and annexation of Austria in 1938. Following the trauma of war, France slipped into the "era of illusions" which despite the comparative prosperity of the 1920s led to the slump and the severe social and economic unrest of the 1930s. The short-lived experiment of Blum's Front Populaire gave way to more conservatively-based ministries, but by 1938 a new common enemy began to draw together the political opinion of the country.

"Let them come forward, they are thirsty for the sight of a King," said Henri IV to his followerswho were trying to push back the curious crowds as he entered Paris in February, 1594. It is perhaps to be regretted that seven kings (to say nothing of two emperors) have since more than quenched the French's taste for royalty, because they have long been in need of - and periodically have sought - a symbol of national unity. Modem-day France has had far more than her share of revolutions, counterrevolutions, uprisings, days, coups, affairs, crises, scandals - and constitution drafting. While it would be an over simplification to interpret this endemic strife as a seesaw conflict between two well-integrated blocs with the ideology of the Great Revolution as the dividing issue, the fact remains that since 1789 political divisions and quarrels arnong Frenchmen have been deep, bitter, and fundamental. After 1870, a Republic may have been the one solution which divided Frenchmen the least (to borrow an expression from Monsieur Thiers) ; but like any and all of the preceding alternatives it was to incur the relentless, irreconcilable opposition of important segments of the population. This study deals with those individuals and organ izations which continued to advocate, and sought to bring about a return to the monarchy under the Third and Fourth Republics.

The years before the First World War have long been romanticized as a zenith of French culture—the “Belle Époque.” The era is seen as the height of a lost way of life that remains emblematic of what it means to be French. In a vast range of texts and images, it appears as a carefree time full of joie de vivre, fanfare and frills, artistic daring, and scientific innovation. The Moulin Rouge shared the stage with the Universal Exposition, Toulouse-Lautrec rubbed elbows with Marie Curie and La Belle Otero, and Fantômas invented automatic writing. This book traces the making—and the imagining—of the Belle Époque to reveal how and why it became a cultural myth. Dominique Kalifa lifts the veil on a period shrouded in nostalgia, explaining the century-long need to continuously reinvent and even sanctify this moment. He sifts through images handed down in memoirs and reminiscences, literature and film, art and history to explore the many facets of the era, including its worldwide reception. The Belle Époque was born in France, but it quickly went global as other countries adopted the concept to write their own histories. In shedding light on how the Belle Époque has been celebrated and reimagined, Kalifa also offers a nuanced meditation on time, history, and memory.