The Saint-Simonians were a group of young engineers and doctors who proposed original solutions to the social and banking crises of the early nineteenth century. They were unique in the 1820s in attracting women, including workers, into their movement, and attempting to change the world through love, including the sexual 'liberation' of women. Some metamorphosed from idealistic reformers to create the first socialist groups in France, while others spearheaded bank reform, railway building and urban transformation in the 1850s. They took the lead in the colonisation of Algeria, in popular journalism, business, and in organising international exhibitions. They planned the most notable engineering project of the time, the Suez Canal, and a project that took over a century more to be completed, the Channel tunnel. Through an examination of the lives, ideals and activities of these men and women, Pilbeam analyses the influence of the Saint-Simonians on nineteenth-century French society.

Historians in France assume that the restoration of Monarchy after the defeat of Napoleon was doomed. The first compact recent history of the period in English, this book reveals that although the French experimented with two Monarchies and a Republic (1814 - 48), there was substantial stability. The Institutional framework constructed during the Revolutionary years (1789 - 1814) remained intact, and the ruling elites retained basic control.

This book is a fascinating survey of nineteenth-century republicanism, the first of its kind this century. It investigates why it was that although France was one of the first countries in modern Europe to become a republic in 1792, it was nearly a hundred years before a republic was acceptable to the majority. Pamela Pilbeam suggests that republicanism was a witch's brew of Enlightenment rationality, bloody memories and conflicting socialist expectations. The book concludes that the successful republic of 1871 used the rhetoric of democracy to conceal persistent elitism.

Historians in France assume that the restoration of Monarchy after the defeat of Napoleon was doomed. The first compact recent history of the period in English, this book reveals that although the French experimented with two Monarchies and a Republic (1814 - 48), there was substantial stability. The Institutional framework constructed during the Revolutionary years (1789 - 1814) remained intact, and the ruling elites retained basic control.

Saint-Simonians were a group of young engineers and doctors who proposed original solutions to the social and banking crises of the early nineteenth century. Through an examination of the lives, ideals and activities of these men and women, the book analyses the influence of the Saint-Simonians on nineteenth-century French society.

This book is a fascinating survey of nineteenth-century republicanism, the first of its kind this century. It investigates why it was that although France was one of the first countries in modern Europe to become a republic in 1792, it was nearly a hundred years before a republic was acceptable to the majority. Pamela Pilbeam suggests that republicanism was a witch's brew of Enlightenment rationality, bloody memories and conflicting socialist expectations. The book concludes that the successful republic of 1871 used the rhetoric of democracy to conceal persistent elitism.