The Politics of Rural Life

This is the first full scholarly study of rural politics in France during the Second Republic (1848-1952). The Revolution of 1848 and the subsequent liberation of political life changed the face of mass politics in rural France. Unprecedented numbers of French men and women participated in legal and illegal forms of political activity during a period of protracted crisis ultimately resolved by a military coup d'etat. Peter McPhee's book draws on hundreds of regional studies to examine the large-scale political mobilizations of right and left in the countryside and offers a new synthesis and interpretation of these years. Dr. McPhee shows that rural politics were both more complex and more threatening to urban elites than has been generally recognized. This is a lucid and challenging analysis of a turbulent period in modern French history and its long-term social and political consequences.