This volume provides a lively and authoritative synthesis of recent work on the social history of France and is now thoroughly updated to cover the 'long nineteenth century' from 1789-1914. Peter McPhee offers both a readable narrative and a distinctive, coherent argument about this remarkable century and explores key themes such as:
- Peasant interaction with the environment
- The changing experience of work and leisure
- The nature of crime and protest
- Changing demographic patterns and family structures
- The religious practices of workers and peasants
- The ideology and internal repercussions of colonisation.
At the core of this social history is the exercise and experience of 'social relations of power' - not only because in these years there were four periods of protracted upheaval, but also because the history of the workplace, of relations between women and men, adults and children, is all about human interaction.
Stimulating and enjoyable to read, this indispensable introduction to nineteenth-century France will help readers to make sense of the often bewildering story of these years, while giving them a better understanding of what it meant to be an inhabitant of France during that turbulent time.

Peter McPhee is Honorary Professorial Fellow at The University of Melbourne, Australia.
He has published widely on the history of modern France, including: A Social History of
France 1789-1914 (2004); Robespierre: a Revolutionary Life (2012); and Liberty or
Death: The French Revolution 1789-1799 (2016). Professor McPhee was elected a
Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1997 and a Fellow of the
Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 2003. Earlier that year he had received
the Centenary Medal for services to Australian education. In 2012, McPhee was made a
Member of the Order of Australia.

List of maps and tables
 List of abbreviations
 Preface to second edition
 Introduction
 France in the 1780s
 The Revolutionary and Reconstruction of French Society, 1789-92
 Republicanism and Counter
Revolution, 1792-5
 The Consolidation of Post
Revolutionary Society, 1795-1815
 The Social Consequences of the Revolution
 The World of Notables and Bourgeois, 1815-45
 The World of Urban Working People, 1815-45
 Rural Change and Continuity, 1815-45
 The Mid-Century Crisis, 1846-52
 The Transformation of Urban France, 1852-80
 The Peak of Rural Civilization, 1852-80
 The Social History of Ideas, 1850-80: 'The Moralization of the Masses'?
 The Republican Triumph and its Challenges, 1877-1914
 Conclusion plus ça change?
  Notes
 A Guide to Further Reading
 Index.