From subject to citizen
Subtitle: the Second Empire and the emergence of modern French democracy
By: Sudhir Hazareesingh.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Princeton, N.J
Language: eng
Number of pages: 393
Subjects: Political culture -- France -- History -- 19th century.; Democracy -- France -- History -- 19th century.; France -- History -- Second Empire, 1852-1870.
Description: From Subject to Citizen offers an original account of the Second Empire (1852-1870) as a turning point in modern French political culture: a period in which thinkers of all political persuasions combined forces to create the participatory democracy alive in France today.

Here Sudhir Hazareesingh probes beyond well-known features of the Second Empire, its centralized government and authoritarianism, and reveals the political, social, and cultural advances that enabled publicists to engage an increasingly educated public on issues of political order and good citizenship. He portrays the 1860s in particular as a remarkably intellectual decade during which Bonapartists, legitimists, liberals, and republicans applied their ideologies to the pressing problem of decentralization.

Ideals such as communal freedom and civic cohesion rapidly assumed concrete and lasting meaning for many French people as their country entered the age of nationalism.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [323]-355) and index.