Peasant and French examines the relationship between French peasants and the development of the French national identity during the nineteenth century. Drawing on methods from cultural studies and social history, as well as a broad range of literary and archival sources, Lehning argues that modern France has in part defined itself as different from the peasantry. Rather than seeing rural French history as a process in which peasants lose their identities and become French, he views it as an ongoing process of cultural contact in which both peasants and the French nation negotiate their identities in relation to each other. The book suggests a new kind of rural history that places the countryside in its national context rather than in isolation.

1. Introductory positions; 2. The French nation and its peasants; 3. The landscape in the early nineteenth century; 4. Changes in the landscape; 5. Gender, places, people; 6. The ambiguities of schooling; 7. Inside the parish church; 8. A new site: electoral politics; 9. Conclusion: towards a new rural history.