Place and Locality in Modern France

Place and Locality in Modern France analyses the significance and changing constructions of local place in modern France. Drawing on the expertise of a range of scholars from around the world, this book provides a timely overview of the cross-disciplinary thinking that is currently taking place over a central issue in French history.

The contributed chapters address a range of subjects that include:

the politics of administrative reform, decentralization, regionalism and local advocacy;

the role of commerce in engendering narratives and experience of local place;

the importance of ethnic, class, gender and race distinctions in shaping local connection and identity;

the generation and transmission of knowledge about local place and culture through academia, civic heritage and popular memory.

As a reconsideration of the 'local' in French history, Place and Locality in Modern France bridges the divide between micro- and macro-history for all those interested in ideas of locality and culture in modern French and European history.

Philip Whalen is Professor of History at Coastal Carolina University, USA.

Patrick Young is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, USA.

Introduction - Returning to the Local in France and Beyond Philip Whalen and Patrick Young / Part I - Meaning and Knowledge / From mal du pays to l'amour du pays: Fatal Nostalgia and the Local in Nineteenth Century France Thomas Dodman / La Lorraine Artiste: Modernity, Nature, and the Nation in the Work of Émile Gallé and the École de Nancy Jessica M. Dandona / Patronage and Patrimony: The Breton Châtelain as Heritage Guardian Daniel DeGroff / Inventing Gastronomic Terroir in Modern Burgundy Philip Whalen / Mapping Locality in Provincial France: The Cartographic Construction of Identity, Space, and Boundaries in Alsace-Lorraine Catherine T. Dunlop / Localizing Universalism: Annales Historians in Contested Transformations of Locality Joseph Tendler / Facing the Nation: National Identity and Personal Integrity under the Occupation Nathan Bracher / Remembering Oradour and Struthof: How Regional Memory Challenges National Commemoration Elizabeth Vlossak / An Uncertain Icon: The Changing Significance of the Croix Occitane in the Midi Viticole Andrew W.M. Smith / Part II - Linkages and Institutions / National Armies, Regional Identities: Provincialism in the French Military, 1750- 1815 Christopher Tozzi / The Republic of Marseille and the Making of Imperial France Ian Coller / National Integration, Language and Politics: The Railways of Alsace-Lorraine in France, 1871-1940 Louisa Zanoun / The Strasbourg Colonial Exhibition of 1924 Alison Carrol / A Transnational Approach to Migration: The International Migration Service and its Marseilles Office in the First Half of the 20th Century Linda Guerry / Le Président? Georges Frêche and the Making of a Local Notable in Late 20th century France Emile Chabal / Our Cousins in the New World: Celebrating Mexico in the French Alps N. Christine Brookes / Judging a Book Town by Its Cover: Advertising Strategies of France's Villages du Livre Audra Merfeld-Langston / French départements as Renewed and Reshaped Provinces Thomas Procureur / Index