A History of Modern France

Jeremy D. Popkin is the William T. Bryan Chair of History at the University of Kentucky (Lexington, Kentucky, USA). In addition to his new comprehensive history, A New World Begins: The Story of the French Revolution, he has published Revolutionary News: The Press in France, 1789–1799; You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery; and A Short History of the French Revolution.

1 "The Oldest Nation of Europe" 2 Eighteenth-Century French Society and Economy 3 Culture and Thought in Eighteenth-Century France 4 Government under Challenge 5 Collapse of the Old Monarchy 6 Successes and Failures of the Liberal Revolution 7 The Radical Revolution 8 The Return to Order 9 The Napoleonic Years 10 The Restoration 11 The July Monarchy and Its Critics 12 A New Social World 13 The Revolution of 1848: The Crisis of Bourgeois Society 14 The Second Empire’s Decade of Prosperity 15 The Second Empire in Difficulties 16 The Paris Commune and the Origins of the Third Republic 17 The Republicans in Power 18 Economic Depression and Political Crises 19 The Dreyfus Affair and the Bloc Républican 20 Culture and Society at the Fin De Siècle 21 The Belle Époque 22 The Plunge into War 23 Crisis, Victory, and Disillusionment 24 France between the Wars 25 The Illusion of Normality 26 From the Popular Front to the War 27 France in the Second World War 28 The Road to Liberation 29 The Revival of the Parliamentary Republic 30 From the Fourth to the Fifth Republic 31 Politics and Economy in De Gaulle’s Republic 32 Society and Culture during the "Thirty Glorious Years" 33 May 1968 and the End of the Gaullist Era 34 The Mitterrand Years 35 France Enters a New Millennium 36 A New Age of Instability Appendix: For Further Reading