Wonderful reading, but this is a lengthy book. . .adressing so many important aspects about French peasant society. It was written in a time when advanced students were expected to know French, so it may present some difficulty to those without the knowledge or a dictionary handy, assuming one wants to understand the quotations, samples of poetry, song, or colloquial dialogue. It is not of major consequence to understand the book, but it might be a little annoying to someone without an intimate grasp of French.

Since there are great content reviews already, I will not add anything more than the tips above. Overall, this is a book rich in facts and will certainly prove a welcome addition to the library of any advanced student or scholar in this subject area.

This superb book traces the modernization of rural France in the last quarter of the 19th century. The book is divided into 3 parts; descriptions of traditional rural France, analysis of the agents of change, and discussion of how changes took place. This book is about both material changes and the parallel changes in psychology that were part of and the result of modernization in France. The emphasis is not primarily on economic statistics but on the day to day life and psychology of rural France. This book provides real insight into the mentality of French peasants and how this mentality was transformed from parochial self-conceptions and accompanying insular social organization to conceptions of French nationality and conscious membership in French society. For example, in the mid-19th century, a large number of Frenchmen did not speak French but rather a variety of regional languages. Expansion of the national economy, mandatory primary education, and other forces would eventually destroy local languages and produce a more homogenous French speaking nation. Weber demonstrates convincingly that this process took place relatively rapidly, focused in the years between the Franco-Prussian War and WWI. While this is a very thick and scholarly book, the quality of writing is excellent and the book is packed with entertaining and revealing anecdotal information.

It is clear that the process of modernization was accompanied by loss of regional cultural distinctions and languages. This cultural homogenization is perhaps regrettable but was an inevitable part of a process that resulted also in higher standards of living, greater individual freedom, and several other benefits. For example, Weber reminds us that in much of traditional rural France, seasonal hunger was common and famine a real possibility. By the end of the 19th century, famine was a vague memory and seasonal hunger largely banished. Similarly, modernization was accompanied by a fall in violence against persons, less child abuse, and weakening of overbearing patriarchial family structure.

This book has a couple of interesting resonances. The period covered by this book is also the height of European Imperialism. As Weber points out, the processes of modernization in rural France were identical to the processes of colonialization. Indeed, the modernization of rural France in the late 19th century can been seen as the final phase of the conquest of France by the region around Paris, a process that began with the Albigensian crusade in the 13th century. Ii is conventional today to depict European Imperialism as the result of the tremendous racism of that time. Yet, the modernization of rural France was essentially the same process carried out against fellow Frenchmen. This fact points out that the relationship between racism and imperialism is more complicated than commonly depicted.

Another interesting resonance relates to the recent tendency of French intellectuals and politicians to denounce the creeping 'Americanization' of French culture. These individuals like to present themselves as guardians as ancient cultural traditions. Yet, many, if not all of these traditions originate in the 19th century. Hardly ancient, and you can argue that American traditions are at least as old. Further, where modern French culture was to a large extent imposed by the coercive acts of the French government, 'Americanization' is the result of free consumer choice.

Eugen Weber has given us an excellent account of the rural countryside of France, 1870-1914. He gives plenty of detail and clearly shows how France has leaped into the modern world. It is a well written and provides the reader with a comprehensive picture of the early stages of modern France. The title is excellently chosen and reflects the true essence of the work. I would suggest this book to anyone who is interested in demographics, sociology, or history in general. It is a nice read! :)

very interesting village in franc

Apocalypses; Prophecies, Cults, and Millennial Beliefs through the Ages, by Eugen Weber, well, the title says it all. This book covers every apocalyptic movement since they first began, and does it in nearly chronological order. Weber writes with a great sense of humor, which keeps this book from being completely mind-numbing. Its not the subject that is monotonous, but the overwhelming number of movements covered. I had no idea just how ubiquitous apocalyptic movements are and have been. This is not a new phenomenon, but one that has persisted for over two millennia of history, even proceeding Christ. I recommend this book as a good reference for anyone studying apocalyptic movements, but it might be a bit much for casual reading by the merely curious.

An amusing and often enlightening book about the many prophecies - from the ancient past to our days - announcing the end of times. After reading this book it will be impossible to listen to the "revelations" of the many charlatans opening - in good or bad faith - their mouth with certainty to find credulity. Too many times the end has been "tomorrow", but too often this has been forgotten.

Review by Marianne Luban:

When the Year 1000 was drawing near, people took it as an omen when Halley's Comet streaked across the heavens. Did this portend Doomsday or the advent of the Messiah? Was Man marching inexorably into the dusk or the dawn? Another thousand years later, we still don't positively know the answer to that question.

The eminent historian, Eugen Weber, delivers his latest work, "Apocalypses", just in time to ponder our status on the brink of the new millennium and to give us insight into the hopes and fears of previous generations who found themselves hesitating before the looming gateway of a new era, weighing prophecies or confronted with phenomena consisting of "lamps of fire, angels, plagues, lightenings, thunderings, earthquakes, falling stars, fire, blood, hail, black sun and bloody moon". Weber writes: "When the world ends, it could be argued that all that ends is the world we know. The end of the world was really only the end of one world, not the end of time but of our time, not the annihilation of mankind but the end of a way of life and its replacement by another."

While some contemplated finales, optimists dreamed and wrote of their hopes for an enlightened, repentant world and the regeneration of the human race: "They speak, earth, ocean, air; I hear them say 'Awake, repent, 'ere we dissolve away!" Yet others faced the unknown and dire forebodings armed with their wit. According to Weber, when Pope Benedict XIV was informed that the AntiChrist had come and was now three years old, the pontiff quipped, "Then I shall leave the problem to my successor."

Eugen Weber must be the world's most fascinating conversationalist. One gets the impression, from reading "Apocalypses", that he has the entire saga of mankind stored in his marvel of a brain and can conjure up imagery, names, anecdotes and dates from it with the same fluency that some of us have when writing a chatty postcard home, describing an exciting day in a far-away locale. This is not to imply that, although Weber's style is urbane and witty, that "Apocalypses" is an easy read. It is not. Eugen Weber is never ponderous, but he makes it plain that he is first and foremost an historian and only secondarily a raconteur. Or perhaps thirdly, because Weber as philosopher is also very much a presence in the book. In fact, it is his own thoughts and comments that leave the most lingering impressions, reminding us that, while the deeds of Man are fleeting, it is his "death-defying thoughts", set down on paper, that are like the nacreous bits of shell that remain gleaming on the beach after the great tides of history have flooded and ebbed. For an academic, Eugen Weber is a very good writer, indeed.

How different our "fin de siecle" seems from bygone chronological milestones. No longer moved by superstition and too jaded for optimism, we await the Millennium with a kind of dull signation. Our popular heroes are all dead or aging and nobody has emerged to replace them. The close of the century seems characterized by vapidity, greed and a lack of concern for the health of the planet we call home. Could there be a more fitting commentary on the status quo than that our direst prophecy for the Year 2000 concerns the imminent failure of the Machine, upon which we have formed such a frightening dependency? Eugen Weber doesn't have an email address. Perhaps he never will. Intellectually speaking, his address is the universe, his understanding cosmic. Doubtless he would like to offer greater comfort, but the honest scholar can only counsel, while commenting on the recent trend toward apocalyptic films and literature: "Adversity is good for faith, and adversity is ever present. Ages of decadence always suggest an end; few ages have not struck their contemporaries by their decadence" and "We suffer and suffering is catastrophic, sometimes unbearable, sometimes final....We yearn for some explosive, extraordinary escape from the inescapable and, none forthcoming, we put our faith in an apocalyptic rupture whereby the inevitable is solved by the unbelievable...in the end, salvation from sin and evil--meaning anxiety, travail and pain."

Marianne Luban is a freelance writer living in Minnesota. Her short fiction collection, "The Samaritan Treasure", is published by Coffee House Press

In Eugen Weber's work, France, Fin de Siécle, the author contends that the period leading up to the close of the 19th century in France exemplified characteristics that serve to define it as a separate entity from the later Belle Époque. In presenting this argument, Weber studies various aspects of Fin de Siécle France and attempts to show their uniqueness from other periods of French history. A time known for decadent behavior, dynamic social strata, new societal roles, and literary and artistic virtuosity, Weber artfully reconstructs the period with due attention given to the technologies and innovations pushing France's move towards modernity and convenience. In this manner, Weber's largest contribution to understanding of the Fin de Siécle period remains the importance his research places on French society's reaction to the radically changing world around them. Whether manifested in art, politics, literature, or economics, Weber effectively shows that the Fin de Siécle embodied not only innovative, but also quite reactionary responses from the French people - a point sometimes glossed over by focusing largely on the achievements of the intellectual and artistic subculture of the period.

In this work, Weber attempts to examine the larger social undercurrents in Fin de Siécle France, as this period remains forever immortalized and likewise popular due in part to the art and literature of the Symbolists, Impressionists, and Romantics. Though the period exemplified painstaking endeavors in decadence and the elevation of vice against virtue, Weber argues that such focus on pessimism remained a characteristic of a much larger societal grouping than solely the Bohemian intellectuals. By examining not only the predominate literature of the age, but likewise contemporary journalism and social commentary, Weber shows a society deep in the throws of overwhelming modernization and the implications of such a change. French society of the time feared a great transgression, as the proliferation of the popular press penetrated most all aspects of society and brought the decadent outlooks and opinions of the few to the attention of the many, further highlighting problems with alcoholism, drug abuse, and moral depravity. Examples such as Petit Journal and Petit Parisien substantiate Weber's claims, as the illustrations he cites clearly expose a society concerned with a commonly perceived transgression in response to the powerful forces of industrialization and modernization. Though the economic recovery in the last part of the period allowed for the Belle Epoch, Weber shows the French people to have a more fatalistic and negative outlook on social progress in the period after the Fin de Siécle and the beginning of World War I.

In order to prevent from devoting too much of his examination on the literary and artistic support of decadent behavior and societal ills, Weber presents the radical changes brought about by the process of industrialization in France and their effects on the daily lives of the common and bourgeois French people. Though the popular presses focused more on the decadent trends of the wealthy, Weber contends that many of the French people - namely the lower classes - began to experience a period of greater prosperity, convenience, and increased leisure time. Weber focuses on events such as the spread of electricity, the institution of closed sewer systems, the increased importance placed on cleanliness, and the use of the telegraph in order to show the advances made during the period that proved to have a more profound effect on the lower classes of French society than the upper classes propensity to respond to these changes with decadent behavior. However, Weber does recognize that society, as a whole, tended to initially show more displeasure with the radical changes of the time period, than to wholeheartedly embrace the benefits of new technologies, social reconstruction, and the new power ascribed to the previously underrepresented proletariat and female portions of French society.

Throughout his argument, Weber relies on anecdotal examples to convey his points concerning the social climate of Fin de Siécle France. By citing specific situations such as the Dreyfus Affair, as well as larger trends such as the new importance placed on sport and the theatre, Weber uses these cases to examine how the different classes of French society reacted to or even precipitated the events. In this manner, Weber does not make overarching generalizations of French society as a whole, but rather gives the reader insight into the positions each class took in trying to deal with the problems and issues that arose during the modernization of Fin de Siécle France. Though each class had its own considerations when dealing with the issues of the time period, Weber - through his well-researched anecdotal studies - shows that change represented one definite continuity between disparate groups of French society. In this sense, Weber's work proves somewhat invaluable, as it helps to perhaps decentralize the over-dramatized importance of the decadent writers and artists and shift the focus more towards the underlying forces to which other societal groups responded differently. Studies unlike Weber's tend to place too great an importance on the decadent and fatalistic attitudes mirrored in popular culture of the time and subsequently devalue the importance of improving standards of living brought about as a result of modernization. When placed against other historical works treating the time period in question, Weber's work presents an interesting and insightful way of viewing the reactions of each group in French society, as each reacted in response - albeit somewhat different - to the overarching sense of change effecting their society as a whole.

Extremely interesting book about decadence and social decline at the end of the century.

This book is a list of primary sources on the major events of European History from the Renaissance to the present. Weber does a good job of presenting balanced viewpoints (except maybe in the case of evolution, where he's definitely pro) The works are a bit dry, but that's not his fault. Plus, he gives a quick summary of each author before presenting his work. Perfect for AP classes (as practice for DBQs)

'The Hollow Years' was an unsatisfying, yet compelling read. Eugen Weber offers his readers a truly kaleidoscopical view of what France (partly) was in the 1930's. Each chapter centers a baffling amount of facts around themes as society, religion, morality, agriculture, demographics, the highs and lows of the French economy, and last but not least French politics. After having finished reading, the reader has digested such an amount of data that one wonders how Eugen Weber could have possibly called this book 'The hollow years'.

Weber's book contains excellent passages. The first chapter, in which Weber describes the widespread sentiment against war is very well written. The issues of religious life, emerging leisure and vacation, and the emancipation of French women are well worked out. Yet, over the whole, Weber has not been able to free himself from the weight of the primary (and secondary) sources stacked (in amazing quantity) in the footnotes. We read facts, hardly interpretations. We get information, but little overview. The book develops no grand, overarching themes. The image of France stays very diffuse. Fittingly, the book does not end on a conclusion.

The author's choice to solely focus on facts, not trends, results in the incomprehensible omission of cardinal elements of what France (also) was in the 1930's:

- Despite the eye-popping blue on the 1930 world-maps, Weber entirely ignores the French domination of Viet-Nam, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Syria, Madagascar and enormous parts of Africa. The Colonial Exposition (1930), which marks the apogee of French empire and attracted millions of visitors is left virtually untreated.

- During the 1930's, the French Communist Party became the most important West-European Communist Party and a leading force in French politics. We do not read anything about the roots of this emergence, nor the importance of communists within French political life.

- After 15 years of division, 1936 saw the merger of the two most important French trade unions: the CGT of the socialist Leon Jouhaux (Nobel Peace prize 1951) and the communist-oriented CGTU, led by Benoit Frachon. Together, they fought for the 40-hour work week and controlled an enormous block of voters, but are absent in the Hollow Years.

Moreover, the book is drenched with a sustained and often irritating antipathy towards virtually all leading French politicians, diplomats and armymen. Weber does not treat France kindly at all. The author allows himself to make patronizing comments towards the behavior of leading politicians on numerous occasions. The extreme negativity of the tone makes the reader constantly want to question the arguments which are put forward. As such, reading Hollow Years was a rather sharpening intellectual experience.

On first glance Weber does not appear to be an ideological historian. He is lighter, more charming, and more tolerant than, say, Richard Pipes. Peasants into Frenchman, his most famous book, is noticeably more profound than Pipes' own relfections on the Russian peasantry where the gap in class, religion and nation produces a noticeably gap in sympathy. But this is ultimately misleading. Weber is an ideologue of consumerism. The problem with this account of the thirties is the subtle but insinuating sense of superiority that Weber feels against France for being insufficiently wealthy, insufficiently successful, insufficiently innovative. It is too worried about dreary politics of the left and right, not like the hip charming sexy centrists of the New Republic. His anecdotes look less at complex debates about French diplomacy, its economic performance, class struggle and about the "real" issue of living in our joyful yet principled anti-Communist consumer utopia, and how France fails on this score. The result is a stimulating book full of lively detail which is subtly misleading. Historians recognize that they have the advantage of hindsight, and that the people they study do not. Weber seems to forget this crucial point.

Weber's gift for anecdote can be seen in his discussion of the diffusion of such things as refrigerators, telephones, electricity. French roads were so bad in the thirties that one would not bet to get from Paris to Lyons in less than nine hours. When Jacques Le Roy Ladurie, a leading French historian went for his driver's liscence, he hit a wall and a chicken and nearly missed a pedestrian, but still got his liscence. Carmelite nuns never washed themselves and used paper strips when menstruating. He describes the often hostile attitude towards feminism and towards immigrants.

Yet Weber's wide range of source reflects an indulgence in anecdotes rather than a sharp sense of analysis. The result is a scattershot impressionism which exaggerates French weakness and decline. He quotes Lindberg's contemptuous comments on the army, but other contemporary comments said French soliders were more determined and resolute. Weber quotes an unflattering song by Maurice Chevalier on the army, but not Paif's more patriotic Mon Legionnaire. Labor struggles are simply blamed at one point on communist agitation, much is made of pacifist fearmongering and naivete. Yet the sinister and authoritarian Croix de Feu is absolved of being fascist. Ultimately the arguments are strings of anecdotes which do not fully take into account of opposing arguments.

A montage of glimpses into France between the World Wars. A book of this short length, on such a subject, simply cannot cover it to any detail, no matter how skilfully written. Though the latter it certainly is, given the author's expertise as a writer and a historian.

The chapters are disconnected. There is little flow between one and the next. Which means that you can read them in any order, with little narrative loss.

Within a chapter, we see sharp anecdotes, that highlight the subject, be it the culture/s, migrants, religion or whatever. Some of these are bloody hilarious. Like, did you know that in some French cities, people were emptying slop buckets into the streets till the 1950s? Yuk! :-( Wow! That regular bathing was rare, and widely considered unhealthy?

Some attitudes, like the suspicion of the emanations of power lines, echo today's views in France and elsewhere in Europe, about genetically modified foods.

Quite a nice read.

Don't buy this book expecting it to be related to Eugen Weber's excellent PBS series of the same name. Instead, it is a collection of historical documents that form the basis of Western thought. Documents range from passages from the Bible, to the US Declaration of Independence and Federalist Papers, to Malthus' treatises on overpopulation. All in all, this is not a bad book to have as a reference to these historical documents. Unfortunately, those hoping for Weber's incisive commentary on the history of the West will have to wait for PBS to rerun the TV series, or will have to buy the series from CPB/Annenberg for.