Becoming French: Mapping the Geographies of French Identity, 1871-1914 - Hardcover

Lindaman, Dana Kristofor

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 081013280X ISBN 13: 9780810132801

Publisher: Northwestern University Press, 2016

Synopsis

Becoming French explores the geographical shift that occurs in French society during the first four decades of France's Third Republic government. Dana Kristofor Lindaman provides the historical context that led to the explosion of geographic interest at the end of the nineteenth century, exploring the ways that the work of the geographers Paul Vidal de la Blache and Élisée Reclus served as a conceptual basis for abstract notions of the nation such as la Patrie. Lindaman then uses Reclus's formulation of the earth as "une organisme terrestre" (terrestrial organism) to read Jules Verne's Voyage au centre de la terre (Journey to the Center of the Earth) as a journey to the center of the individual self. Finally, he traces the geographic narrative of G. Bruno's Tour de la France par deux enfants, in particular the way that Bruno's work incorporates the geographic thought of Vidal de la Blache, to discover the organic ties that bind readers through the shared experience of reading the text.

About this title

About the Author:

DANA KRISTOFOR LINDAMAN is an assistant professor of French studies at University of Minnesota, Duluth.

Review:

“A provocative, cogent book that opens up new perspectives in the history of French geography, both as academic discipline and cultural touchstone.”—M. Martin Guiney, author of Teaching the Cult of Literature in the French Third Republic

About this edition

• Publisher: Northwestern University Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 081013280X
• ISBN 13: 9780810132801
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192