A. Knapp – författare

France's liberation was expected to trigger a decisive break both with the Vichy régime and with the pre-war Third Republic. What happened was an untidy patchwork of unplanned continuities and false starts. This volume analyses the complex process of regime change, economic renewal, social transformation, and adjustment to a fast-evolving world.

The French elections of 2002 broke all records for fragmentation, abstention and far-Right protest voting, yet returned incumbent President Chirac in triumph and gave him a solid basis of parliamentary support. "Parties and the Party System in France" seeks to explain the paradox of France's contemporary relationship to politics through a comprehensive analysis of French political parties and their interaction during the second half of the 20th century, set against the two contexts of French history and of contemporary theories of parties and party systems.

The French elections of 2002 broke all records for fragmentation, abstention and far-Right protest voting, yet returned incumbent President Chirac in triumph and gave him a solid basis of parliamentary support. "Parties and the Party System in France" seeks to explain the paradox of France's contemporary relationship to politics through a comprehensive analysis of French political parties and their interaction during the second half of the 20th century, set against the two contexts of French history and of contemporary theories of parties and party systems.

Mediterranean Connections focuses on the origin and development of maritime transport containers from the Early Bronze through early Iron Age periods (ca. 3200–700 BC). Analysis of this category of objects broadens our understanding of ancient Mediterranean interregional connections, including the role that shipwrecks, seafaring, and coastal communities played in interaction and exchange. These containers have often been the subject of specific and detailed pottery studies, but have seldom been examined in the context of connectivity and trade in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean.This broad study: considers the likely origins of these types of vessels; traces their development and spread throughout the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean as archetypal organic bulk cargo containers; discusses the wider impact on Mediterranean connections, transport and trade over a period of 2,500 years covering the Bronze and early Iron Ages. Classical and Near Eastern archaeologists and historians, as well as maritime archaeologists, will find this extensively researched volume an important addition to their library.

France's liberation was expected to trigger a decisive break both with the Vichy régime and with the pre-war Third Republic. What happened was an untidy patchwork of unplanned continuities and false starts. This volume analyses the complex process of regime change, economic renewal, social transformation, and adjustment to a fast-evolving world.