The French are of perennial interest, for, among other things, their style, their cuisine and wine, and their cultural output. Culture and Customs of France is a thoroughly jam-packed narrative through the glories that France continues to offer the world. The volume is a boon for preparing country reports, a must-read for travelers, and perfect for culture studies. Chapters on the land, people, and history, religion, social customs, gender, family, and marriage, cinema and media, literature, food and fashion, architecture and art, and performing arts are current and pleasurable to...

In The World of the Paris Cafe, W. Scott Haine investigates what the working-class cafe reveals about the formation of urban life in nineteenth-century France. Cafe society was not the product of a small elite of intellectuals and artists, he argues, but was instead the creation of a diverse and changing working population. Making unprecedented use of primary sources--from marriage contracts to police and bankruptcy records--Haine investigates the cafe in relation to work, family life, leisure, gender roles, and political activity. This rich and provocative study offers a bold...