Place and Locality in Modern France ed. by Philip Whalen, Patrick Young (review)

historical analyses and offer a broad range of perspectives, which certainly make for an interesting read. The introduction sets the tone for the diverse works to follow, albeit some more compelling than others, and situates the chapters in a familiar context for informed and less informed readers alike. The book focuses on politics and the individual from such angles as the historical and philosophical contextualization of the interwar films of Jean Renoir (in Martin O’Shaughnessy’s chapter), or Liora Israël’s approach to the formation of newly-significant status through the diaries of three Jewish lawyers. The book also addresses broader questions of precisely what it means to be “engaged” and how this translates into both the real and the imaginary. The notion of commitment certainly remains at the heart of this inquiry, which takes into account wider narratives and collective memory while exploring specificities of French ideas. The conclusion pulls together the complex arguments put forward by the authors and offers food for thought in terms of how and why we choose to engage (or not) in political debates, parties, or street politics. Finally, the bibliography provides a useful resource for further study in the field. This rich and original volume will certainly appeal to those readers with an interest in individuals previously or actively involved in political movements, as well as those who appreciate the ongoing debates concerning the plight of individual commitment in the twenty-first century, particularly in French culture. University of Toronto Catherine Gaughan Whalen, Philip, and Patrick Young, eds. Place and Locality in Modern France. New York: Bloomsbury, 2014. ISBN 978-1-78093-686-4. Pp. xl + 221. $120. Each of the eighteen essays in this volume examines a territorial, cultural, or political issue as it relates to a specific locality in France, with the broad goal of analyzing manifestations of local identity. The essays are written by French and history scholars from North America and Europe. The chapters are grouped into three thematic and methodological paradigms. The first, centered on space, examines issues confined to a limited territory. One essay analyzes historical maps in Alsace as a means of understanding the relationship between local and national (either French or German) governmental entities. In a related essay, the reintegration of Alsace into France, after forty-seven years of German annexation, is discussed in the context of a 1924 Strasbourg exhibition that aimed to educate Alsatians about France’s overseas empire and promote Alsace to greater France. The subject of another study is Burgundy’s conscious effort, beginning in the early 1900s, to transform and promote itself as a gastronomic center. The second category of essays examines the tendency for French citizens to remain culturally identified with a specific locale, even in the context of wider events. Included in this group is the case of the late nineteenth-century designer Émile Gallé, who took inspiration from the natural flora of his native Lorraine in 206 FRENCH REVIEW 90.2 Reviews 207 creating the École de Nancy, an essential component of the national Art Nouveau movement. In another essay, the phenomenon of the village du livre, dating from 1989, investigates how several rural villages promote themselves by cultivating a print culture through bookstores and literary festivals.A case study probes the complex relationship between two French villages in the aftermath of the June 1944 massacre of hundreds of villagers at Oradour-sur-Glane by German forces. Among the aggressors were French men conscripted by Germans from the Alsatian town of Schirmeck. After a postwar trial, the Alsatians were granted amnesty, and the surviving Oradour villagers felt betrayed. In the late twentieth century, national authorities erected memorials at both sites to redirect attention to larger issues of wartime atrocities. In this case, national judgment prevailed over local emotions. The volume’s third group highlights the local nature of political issues. Here one finds a historical example of the survival of regional identity during military service, which is generally seen as a force for national cohesion. In a similar fashion, a study of internal migration in France during and after the Revolution finds a tendency for individuals from a given region to group together in new...