This is a new and path-breaking social history of France in the nineteenth century which goes beyond the traditional focus of class & class conflict and religion & anticlericalism. Incorporating much recent research, Roger Magraw draws both upon still-valuable insights derived from the 'new social history' of the 1960s and upon more recent approaches suggested by gender history , cultural anthropology and the 'linguistic turn'. The author explores exciting new areas such as crime and punishment, medicalization, consumerism and gender. Each chapter contains very extensive, up-to date bibliography . For those interested in French history