Political Traditions in Modern France [Paperback]

This engaging new account of French politics takes an unconventional approach to its turbulent subject. Rather than seeing a political history of rupture and fragmentation, Hazareesingh emphasizes continuity, and shows how opposing parties and movements throughout French history have been brought together by ideas.
Treating French political history from 1789 to the present, Hazareesingh focuses on the relationship between ideologies and political movements. He covers all the important features of French public life in the period, including the nature of republicanism, nationalism, and religion and the role of intellectuals. These features in turn provide the setting for his treatment of peace movements and the political traditions of liberalism, socialism, Gaullism, and communism.
Written in a clear and accessible style, this book will be invaluable guide to French politics for students and scholars and an informative introduction for general readers interested in France.

This sensitive and intelligent book lies at the difficult intersection of political science, intellectual history, and political theory and combines the usually disparate approaches of these sub-disciplines with unusual confidence and success. The result is impressive. --Tony Judt

A masterful intellectual history of France. --Choice

Hazareesingh presents the modern history of French parties, ideologies and the Fifth Republic with clarity and cogency. His understanding of Gaullism is profound and his explication of the General's impact on state development is precise. --Kurt W. Jefferson, Westminster College

A well written and entertaining book which will be of use to all those with an interest in the development of France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Historian

Sudhir Hazareesinghis Official Fellow and Tutor in Politics at Balliol College, Oxford, and author ofIntellectuals and the FlC