French Historians and Romanticism

The French Revolution problematized the relation to the past, while at the same time setting th agenda for modern political culture.French Historians and Romanticismexamines the ways in which the past was rediscovered, retrieved and re-presented in post-revolutionary France, concentrating upon the Restoration and the July Monarchy, the period which witnessed the promotion of history as a grand discourse of legitimation. The book situates the Romantic historical project in relation to broader debates concerning individualism, authority, violence, community and nationhood, and showing the nineteenth century was about power as well as knowledge. It will be of interest to readers in French culture, history and European intellectual history.