Republicanism in Nineteenth-Century France, 1814-1871

This is a survey of 19th-century republicanism in France.

It investigates why, although France was one of the first countries in modern Europe to become a republic, it was nearly 100 years before a republic was acceptable to the majority.

Pilbeam suggests that republicanism was a witch's brew of Enlightenment rationality, bloody memories and conflicting socialist expectations.

The book concludes that the successful republic of 1871 used the rhetoric of democracy to conceal persistent elitism.