Theodore Zeldin – författare

Politics and Anger

Sketches France's political and intellectual development and comments on social divisions and customs from the late 1840's through the Second World War.

Analyzes the Frenchman's unique national identity, attitudes towards foreigners, education, and intellectual and cultural development from the late 1840's through the 1900's.

A History of French Passions Volume 4: Taste and Corruuption

Anxiety and Hypocrisy

This survey is a major reinterpretation of France's achievement as a nation and of the individual experience of the French, which has taken its place as one of the great works of scholarship on modern France.

This is a history of the French which tries to explain their idiosyncrasies, enthusiasms and prejudices. It goes beyond the recital of events to investigate their attitudes and behaviour over an unusually wide range of activities.Volume I scrutinizes the peculiar way of thinking and of talking adopted by the French, their powerful sense of national identity, their ambivalent feelings about foreigners. It shows what it meant to be a Breton or a Provencal, an Alsation or an Auvergnat. Volume II analyses French taste and the role of the artist. It enquires into the quality of life, the French view of happiness, friendship and comfort, humour, reactions to scientific progress, compromises with corruption and superstition.This major reinterpretation of France's achievement as a nation and of the individual experience of the French has taken its place as one of the great works of scholarship on modern France, and now re-appears in two paperback volumes.

This is a history of the French, which tries to explain their idiosyncrasies, enthusiasms and prejudices. It goes beyond the recital of events to investigate their attitudes and behaviour over an unusually wide range of activities. The first part scrutinizes the peculiar way of thinking and of talking adopted by the French, their powerful sense of national identity, their ambivalent feelings about foreigners. It shows what it meant to be a Breton or a Provencal, an Alsation or an Auvergnat. The second part analyses French taste and the role of the artist. It enquires into the quality of life, the French view of happiness, friendship and comfort, humour, reactions to scientific progress, compromises with corruption and superstition. This survey is a major reinterpretation of France's achievement as a nation and of the individual experience of the French. It has taken its place as one of the great works of scholarship on modern France.

'The book that changed my life... a constant companion' Bill Bailey'Extraordinary and beautiful...the most exciting and ambitious work of non-fiction I have read in more than a decade' The Daily TelegraphThis extraordinarily wide-ranging study looks at the dilemmas of life today and shows how they need not have arisen. Portraits of living people and historical figures are placed alongside each other as Zeldin discusses how men and women have lost and regained hope; how they have learnt to have interesting conversations; how some have acquired an immunity to loneliness; how new forms of love and desire have been invented; how respect has become more valued than power; how the art of escaping from one's troubles has developed; why even the privileged are often gloomy; and why parents and children are changing their minds about what they want from each other.

A guide to new ambitions in work, relationships and learning, by our most inspired thinker on society and community."Scintillating . . . prophetic . . . engaging" - Financial Times"A masterpiece" - The TimesWhat is worth knowing? What does it mean to be alive? Where can one find nourishment for the mind? What is the great adventure of our time? What is a wasted life? What can the poor tell the rich? What could the rich tell the poor? How many ways of committing suicide are there? How can prejudices be overcome? How else can one think about the future, apart from trying to predict it or worrying about it? Is ridicule the most effective form of non-violent protest? How does one acquire a sense of humour? What stops people feeling completely at home in their own country? How many nations can one love at the same time? Why do so many people feel unappreciated, unloved and only half alive? How else might women and men treat one another? What can replace the shortage of soul-mates? Is another kind of sexual revolution achievable? What is more interesting than becoming a leader? What is the point of working so hard? Are there more amusing ways of earning a living? What else can one do in a hotel? Theodore Zeldin is the bestselling author of Conversation and An Intimate History of Humanity. His TED talk has now been viewed 1 million times.Winner of the Salon London Transmission Prize

First published in 1970, Conflicts in French Society is a detailed study of the social history of anticlericalism. Its four chapters, based on original research, reinterpret the causes and extent of some traditional conflicts in modern French society. In ‘The Conflict of Moralities,’ Theodore Zeldin investigates the confession to discover what sins and pleasures of daily life were revealed and repressed by it. This provides rare insight into sexual behaviour in nineteenth-century France. In ‘The Conflict in Education,’ Robert Anderson shows us how different the pupils of church and state schools really were and challenges the view that the two systems divided France into hostile camps. In ‘The Conflict in Politics,’ Austin Gough describes the way the church organized a political following, and how the Bonapartists fought back. In ‘The Conflict in Village Life,’ Roger Magraw studies popular anticlericalism at the local level and shows how ideology was far from being the major cause of it. In doing so, he provides an intimate picture of village life. This book will be of interest to sociologists of religion and educationists as well as to those wishing to understand the politics and morals of France.

First published in 1970, Conflicts in French Society is a detailed study of the social history of anticlericalism. Its four chapters, based on original research, reinterpret the causes and extent of some traditional conflicts in modern French society. In ‘The Conflict of Moralities,’ Theodore Zeldin investigates the confession to discover what sins and pleasures of daily life were revealed and repressed by it. This provides rare insight into sexual behaviour in nineteenth-century France. In ‘The Conflict in Education,’ Robert Anderson shows us how different the pupils of church and state schools really were and challenges the view that the two systems divided France into hostile camps. In ‘The Conflict in Politics,’ Austin Gough describes the way the church organized a political following, and how the Bonapartists fought back. In ‘The Conflict in Village Life,’ Roger Magraw studies popular anticlericalism at the local level and shows how ideology was far from being the major cause of it. In doing so, he provides an intimate picture of village life. This book will be of interest to sociologists of religion and educationists as well as to those wishing to understand the politics and morals of France.