In 1852, President Louis Napoleon of France declared that August
15--Napoleon Bonaparte's birthday--would be celebrated as France's
national day. Leading up to the creation of the Second Empire, this
was the first in a series of attempts to "Bonapartize" his regime
and strengthen its popular legitimacy. Across France, public
institutions sought to draw local citizens together to celebrate
civic ideals of unity, order, and patriotism. But the new sense of
French togetherness was fraught with tensions.
Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence, Sudhir Hazareesingh
vividly reconstructs the symbolic richness and political complexity
of the Saint-Napoleon festivities in a work that opens up broader
questions about the nature of the French state, unity and lines of
fracture in society, changing boundaries between public and private
spheres, and the role of myth and memory in constructing
nationhood. The state's Bonapartist identity was at times
vigorously contested by local social, political, and religious
groups. In various regions, people used the national day to
celebrate their own communities and to honor their hometown
veterans; but elsewhere, the revival of republican sentiment
clashed sharply with imperial attitudes.
Sophisticated and gracefully written, this book offers rich
insights into modern French history and culture.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!