Rural Inventions
The French Countryside after 1945
- Publisher's listprice GBP 47.49
-
21 441 Ft (20 420 Ft + 5% VAT)
The price is estimated because at the time of ordering we do not know what conversion rates will apply to HUF / product currency when the book arrives. In case HUF is weaker, the price increases slightly, in case HUF is stronger, the price goes lower slightly.
- Discount 10% (cc. 2 144 Ft off)
- Discounted price 19 297 Ft (18 378 Ft + 5% VAT)
Subcribe now and take benefit of a favourable price.
Subscribe
21 441 Ft
Availability
Only to order.
Why don't you give exact delivery time?
Delivery time is estimated on our previous experiences. We give estimations only, because we order from outside Hungary, and the delivery time mainly depends on how quickly the publisher supplies the book. Faster or slower deliveries both happen, but we do our best to supply as quickly as possible.
Product details:
- Publisher OUP USA
- Date of Publication 22 April 2020
- ISBN 9780190079079
- Binding Hardback
- No. of pages200 pages
- Size 160x236x22 mm
- Weight 431 g
- Language English
- Illustrations 31 illustrations 0
Categories
Short description:
Rural Inventions looks at the transformation of rural France in the 1950s and 1960s when rapid modernization and explosive economic growth drove peasants from the countryside and eroded village traditions. It shows that the French responded not only with nostalgia but also by inhabiting the countryside in new ways. This book explores the rise of restored peasant houses as second residences; utopian experiments in rural communes and in "going back to the land"; environmentalism; the literary success of peasant autobiographies; photography; and other representations through which the French revalorized rural life and landscapes. This book presents postwar rural France as a site not just of decline and loss but also of change and adaptation.
MoreLong description:
At the close of the twentieth century, even as globalization spurred the growth of megacities worldwide, inhabiting the French countryside had become an internationally-shared fantasy and practice. Accounts of moving into old farmhouses were bestsellers, and houses and barns built by peasants had been renovated as second homes throughout the rural hinterland. Such developments, Sarah Farmer argues, did not simply stem from nostalgia for a rural past or a desire to invest in real estate. Rather, they defined new versions of the rural that emerge in post-agrarian societies.
In post-World War II France, cutting-edge technological modernization and explosive economic growth uprooted rural populations and eroded the village traditions of a largely peasant nation. And yet, this book argues, rural France did not vanish in the sweeping transformations of the 1950s and 1960s. The French responded to the collapse of peasant society and threats to cherished landscapes by devising new ways of inhabiting the countryside, making them the sites of change and adaptation. In addition to the rise of restored peasant houses as second residences, Rural Inventions explores the utopian experiments in rural communes and in "going back to the land"; environmentalism; the extraordinary success of peasant autobiographies; photography; and other representations through which the French revalorized rural life and landscapes. The peasantry as a social class may have died out, but the countryside persisted, valued as a site not only for agriculture but increasingly for sport and leisure, tourism, social and political engagement, and a natural environment worth protecting.
The postwar French state and the nation's rural and urban inhabitants, Sarah Farmer eloquently shows, remade the French countryside in relation to the city and to the world at large, not only invoking traditional France but also creating a vibrant and evolving part of the France yet to come.
In this beautifully written account of postwar urban-rural relations, Sarah Farmer pushes back against declensionist 'vanishing peasant' narratives and argues that the give-and-take between rural and urban France led to renewal and transformation rather than decline and decay. From rural men and women who purchased washing machines and joined the environmental movement, to the urban French who sought refuge from the city by way of peasant memoirs and country homes, Farmer persuasively argues for connection rather than dislocation....This is a must-read for anyone working on the period in France. It will also speak to scholars of other geographical areas as a comparative, given the foundational nature of questions surrounding urban-rural relations, agricultural industrialization, and modernity. Lastly, its length and transparent prose mean that it would be suitable for both undergraduate and graduate teaching.
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. The Peasantry Is Dead, Long Live the Peasantry!
2. Second Homes: Peasant Dwellings as Rural Retreats
3. Back to the Land: Rural Utopias in 1970s France
4. Progress and Nostalgia: Memoirs of French Peasant Life
5. Disrupted Landscapes: Raymond Depardon's Visual Memoir
Conclusion
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
