A History of Modern France: Volume 2: From the 1st Empire to the 2nd Empire, 1799-1871 (Penguin History) |
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You Are Here: Home > History Books > France History > Item 198
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A History of Modern France: Volume 2: From the 1st Empire to the 2nd Empire, 1799-1871 (Penguin History)
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by Alfred Cobban
Sales Rank: 1445374
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$14.94
At Amazon
on 8-1-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 256 pages
Published by: Penguin Non-Classics; 2 Reprint edition May 28, 1992
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0140138269
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0140138269
Book Dimensions:
7 x 5 x 1 inches
Weighs: 8 ounces
Reader Reviews
This review is from: History of Modern France: Volume 2: From the First Empire to the Second Empire, 1799-1871 (Pelican Books) (Paperback)
Alfred Cobban succeeds in explaining the essence of seventy years of French history in a small book. Those years were dominated, first, by the ambition of one man, and after, by 'the interest of property'. 'The men who ruled France were not economically minded, and their electorate was largely one of landed proprietors.' The 'raison d'etre' of the Napoleonic state was war. Napoleon's policies ended in a catastrophe for France, after making 860.000 victims, of which half under 28. He was replaced by those who represented the 'pays legal': only 9.000 people out of a population of 26 million ('le pays reel') could vote. The chasm between the two 'pays' was immense, but only very visible in the capital Paris. It lead to the Revolution of 1848, where the few wealthy crushed the unemployed and starving masses, and in 1971, to the Paris Commune, again abolished in blood (20.000 victims). In the meantime, France under the unscrupulous Napoleon III suffered a humiliating defeat by the Prussians. This period was also characterized by the power struggle between the Church and the State, between the priest and the teacher, who had to spread the republican faith of anticlericalism. The Church clearly chose the cause of the oligarchy. In the papal Encyclical 'Mirari vos', the Pope attacked the abolition of censorship, freedom of education, universal suffrage and the separation of Church and State. This period also posed the essential dilemma of the universal suffrage: has the sovereign people the right to repudiate democracy? The great mass of electors were illiterate peasants likely to follow the lead of their clergy, local landowners and notables. On the theoretical and revolutionary front, we meet Proudhon (property is theft), Fourier (the evils of civilization are traced to property), Louis Blanc (the right to work), Saint-Simon (the first Keynesian) and Lamennais ('They have said you were a flock and that they were your shepherds; you the beasts, they the men. Theirs, therefore, your fleece, your milk, your flesh']. Alfred Cobban comments also the ongoing revolution in arts. With his ironic style, he wrote a book that reads like a thriller. Highly recommended, not only for historians.
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A History of Modern France: Volume 2: From the 1st Empire to the 2nd Empire, 1799-1871 (Penguin History)
Available from Amazon
Price: $14.94
Updated on 8-1-2008.
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