This is a magisterial piece of scholarship that breaks new ground by providing a wide-ranging, multi-dimensional perspective on the changes that have affected rural France since World War II. What makes this book extraordinary is the sheer sweep of the analysis conducted by Sarah Farmer and the depth of erudition that she brings to it. Farmer seems equally at home in the musty archives of the Biblioth`eque Nationale, the films of the Ministry of Agriculture, the popular TV shows and magazines in which rural themes arose, and the immense scholarly and popular literature that rural France has generated over the past hundred years.
Sarah Farmer is associate professor of history at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author of Martyred Village: Commemorating the 1944 Massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane.