Books about the 3rd Republic

[Levin]

Can anyone recommend anything decent, not too academic, about the French Third Republic? Google just turns up things about 1940.

I recognise that this may be a long shot for English language stuff. Apart from Dreyfuss I can't imagine there is much that would be popular history.

[Levin]

Alternatively, feel free to tell me that it's going to be very boring and too much about who was in what cabinet for which PM.

[ursus arctos]

The bibliography in the English Wikipedia article is a decent overview of the English language literature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Third_Republic

I enjoyed both the Zeldin and the Eugen Weber books, though they are far from political histories.

The Cambridge Modern History series is generally solid on politics, with parts of it available online.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Can anyone recommend anything decent, not too academic, about the French Third Republic? Google just turns up things about 1940.

I recognise that this may be a long shot for English language stuff. Apart from Dreyfuss I can't imagine there is much that would be popular history.

I might be misremembering, but I think that Etienne studied this era at one point, so he might be your best bet for recommendations.

[Etienne]

It’s a bit too broad a topic for a good overall study. You’d be better going for one book pre World War One and one after. I second ursus recommendation for Eugen Weber. Graham Robb’s Discovery of France is the antithesis of which guy was in which cabinet but is very readable and will tell you far more about what life in France was like than anything on politics.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Winock and Azéma were the main experts in French when I was teaching it. May have been translated at some point.

[Levin]

Thank you. The Weber does look very interesinteresting.I get what you mean about the length of the period, 70 years is too much for anything with a lot of detail, but not long enough for a summary approach.