This final volume of the Short Oxford History of France explores the huge transformations which have taken place in the areas of politics, society, and culture between the late nineteenth and the end of the twentieth centuries. A leading team of historians provide a re-evaluation of modern French history based on a new, collaborative approach which offers fresh insights on such themes as economic and social change, women, intellectuals and culture, religion and secularization, as well as an authoritative overview of politics and international relations. The book emphasises throughout what was different about the French experience in relation to other western democracies, and what was distinctive about French political culture and the French sense of national identity.