This is a guide to France intended for the traveller who wants to get to know French people as individuals, for the negotiating businessman and for students who wishes to discover in-depth aspects of their lives. It looks at what makes up the national character of France.

This is a history of the French, which attempts to explain their idiosyncrasies, enthusiasms, and prejudices. It goes beyond a mere recital of events to investigate the attitudes and behavior over an unusually wide range of activities. The first part scrutinizes the peculiar way of thinking and of talking adopted by the French and their ambivalent feelings about foreigners. It shows what it meant to be a Breton or a Provencal, an Alsatian, or an Auvergnat. The second part analyzes French taste and the role of the artist. It enquires into the quality of life, the French view of happiness,...

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...