Peasant and French: Cultural Contact in Rural France during the Nineteenth Century

by James R. Lehning

Peasant and French examines the relationship between French peasants and the development of the French national identity during the nineteenth century. Drawing on methods from cultural studies, social history and a broad range of literary and archival sources, Lehning argues that modern France has in part defined itself as different from the peasantry. Rather than seeing rural French history as a process in which peasants lose their identities and become French, he views it as an ongoing process of cultural contact in which both peasants and the French nation negotiate their identities in relation to the other. The book suggests a new kind of rural history that places the countryside in its national context rather than in isolation.

Paperback

First published April 28, 1995

Reviews

[Harry Gardner · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book detailing the relationship between the cultural concept of “French” (urban, developed, secular, rational) and peasant over the course of the 19th century. The author documents one department, the Loire, at a level of detail that is stunning—from agriculture (relevant factors being avg size of farm, type of land tenure, crop farmed, crop yielded, unit price for crop) to nuptiality (marriage behavior, age of marriage, are both spouses literate, etc.) and other such fun tidbits (religious observance, electoral changes in the early third republic). Given what a run on sentence that last one was, you can guess that I’m overly excited about it.

Interesting points from the book that I’d be remiss to not mention.

The concept of peasant versus French is another instance of a passive-active distinction (similar to a patriarchal concept of women and men).

French rural behavior over the nineteenth century was not a lurch to progress nor should it be forgotten that progress can mask more than it elucidate. Progress to what is always the question to ask, and in the course of the 19th century, progress (in the French context) looked like an assimilation of French peasants (in large part) to urban Parisian ways of life. This included: decreased religiosity (measured by lack of observance of wedding bans in Advent and Easter, decreased number of kids in marriage), adoption of a northern French/Parisian spoken French versus local patois, increased republicanism, and increased school attendance and literacy rates.

None of this is exhaustive nor should rural France be made into a monolith—within the many cantons of the Loire there were marked differences (no strict uniformity). Western regions (Monts du Forez) were more religious, had higher birth rates (and death rates) even in the late century, and supported monarchist candidates in the elections of the early third republic. Some regions were heavily skewed towards complex families and others more skewed towards nuclear families! In short—the book makes a strong case to analyze the countryside on its own terms, not as an impoverished or deficient metropolis, and to be more critical of the application of a straightforward progress narrative on the rural French peasantry of the 19th century.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

So why the low star review: this wasn't terrible (and had some interesting bits), but through this book I was convinced, if I wasn't already, that social history is muuuuch less interesting than cultural history. Also, I found myself asking "so what?" Lehning points out many different statistics and useful sources, but I felt that he failed to draw any larger implications.

Also, caveat: I didn't read this book cover to cover. I skipped several sections once I determined they weren't relevant to the information I was after.