Growing Up in France: From the Ancien Régime to the Third Republic - Softcover

Heywood, Colin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521123119 ISBN 13: 9780521123112

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2009

Synopsis

How did French people write about their own childhood and youth between the 1760s and the 1930s? Colin Heywood argues that this was a critical period in the history of young people, as successive generations moved from the relatively stable and hierarchical society of the Ancien Régime to a more fluid one produced by the industrial and democratic revolutions of the period. The main sources he uses are first-hand accounts of growing up: letters, diaries, childhood reminiscences and autobiographies. The book's first section considers cultural constructions of childhood and adolescence, and representations of growing up. The second considers the process of growing up among family and friends, the third the experience of moving out into the wider world, via education, work, political activity and marriage. This unique account will appeal to historians of childhood and adolescence, as well as social and cultural historians.

About this title

Book Description:

How did French people write about their own childhood and youth between the 1760s and the 1930s? Colin Heywood argues that this was a critical period, as generations moved from the hierarchical society of the Ancien Régime to a more fluid one produced by the revolutions of the period.

About the Author:

Colin Heywood is Reader in Modern French History at the University of Nottingham. His previous publications include The Development of the French Economy, 1750-1914 (1995), and A History of Childhood in the West (2001).

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0521123119
• ISBN 13: 9780521123112
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 328