Israël Finkelstein

The Forgotten Biblical Kingdom

One of the world’s greatest archaeologists reveals what the Bible doesn’t tell us.

Sylvie Schweitzer

Women Have Always Worked A History of Working Women in the 19th Century

For women, the victory of recent years is one of empowerment in their professional lives: they now have the means to compete with men in every field. Yet society’s traditional image of what is a male or female profession remains very powerful. In 2001, French women had managed to enter professions that were previously practically closed to them but French men are still reluctant to enter traditionally female professions. This book reviews two centuries of women’s work. It shows that women have always worked — but not everywhere. Women’s access to increasingly “prized” jobs goes hand in hand with economic and global development.

Florence Chaltiel

Birth of a European People

Marc Martin

Media and Journalists in the French Republic

Patrick Fridenson, Bénédicte Reynaud

France and the Age of Work (1814-2004)

In this history about working hours in France during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the authors present two highly original theses which go against some established ideas. Their first thesis is that the limitation or reduction of labour hours was not a political, social or economic issue but primarily a question of public health. The authors’ second thesis is that the movement for shorter hours was never a major demand of the trade unions — since absenteeism served to regulate working hours — but the policy of national and international institutions. This is a history book which responds to an impassioned issue in recent French political events. Patrick Fridenson is a historian. Bénédicte Reynaud is an economist.

Laurent Cohen-Tanugi

Backlash The West in the Post-Cold War Period

Anka Muhlstein

Balzac at Table

A luminous essay of “literary gastronomy” for food lovers as well as for anyone interested in the nineteenth-century novel

Nicolas Mariot, Claire Zalc

Faced with persecution The Destruction of the Jews of Lens, 1940-1945

The history of the Holocaust in France, seen from an entirely new angle. This book does not simply describe the numerous possible attitudes: it aims to explain them.