Incorporated into France nearly five hundred years ago, Brittany has never experienced a strong nationalist movement. However, somewhat paradoxically, in recent years signs of a sense of cultural separation from France have grown more evident, raising fundamental questions about the processes of nation formation. By covering two centuries of Breton history, Sharif Gemie provides a thorough grounding in the complex politics of identity in Brittany. Brittany s conflicted status is elucidated through a discussion of how these notions of identity are represented in a variety of forms such as...

For decades, France has been considered one of the world s first and most fully formed nation-states providing a global model of state-centered modernity. Events in recent years, however, such as the long-term presence of France s North African population, the growth of Islam as France s second-largest religion, the development of anti-centrist regional movements, and growing debates about French sexual and social identities have endowed the theme of borders with a special resonance in French studies.This exciting interdisciplinary collection presents a series of perspectives on French border...

This textbook provides an ideal introduction to nineteenth-century France: a 'Century of Revolutions'. Written with the undergraduate student's needs in mind, Sharif Gemie works through the major and minor revolutions which altered the course of French history and which shaped the development of French society. Moving away from a Paris-centred view of the country, the author examines developments which unfolded across France, including studies of rural socialism in Mediterranean France, and peasant monarchism in the West. Following a broadly chronological sequence, each chapter is arranged in...

This is the first book to evaluate works by Western and Muslim women writing about the Muslim experience in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and the United States. In addition, Sharif Gemie looks at how women s writing about Muslim societies has changed over the past century, from the playful and humorous works by pioneering female travelers like Freya Stark and Edith Wharton, to more recent accounts marked by fear, hostility, and even disgust, such as Azar Nafisi s "Reading Lolita in Tehran "and Betty Mahmoody s "Not Without My Daughter." Gemie also identifies and examines a new wave...

The wars of the twentieth century uprooted people on a previously unimaginable scale to the extent that being a refugee became an increasingly widespread experience. With the arrival of refugees, governments of host countries had to mediate between divided national populations: some wished to welcome those arriving in search of refuge; others preferred a strategy of exclusion or even expulsion. At the same time, refugees had to manage conflicts of the self as they responded to the loss of nationhood, families, socio-political networks, material goods, and arguably also a sense of belonging or...