during this helpful reference paintings, the world’s most desirable gurus on France’s political, social, cultural, and highbrow historical past discover the heritage and which means of the French Republic and the demanding situations it has confronted. based in 1792, the French Republic has been outlined and redefined via a succession of regimes and associations, a multiplicity of symbols, and a plurality of meanings, principles, and values. even if always in flux, the Republic has still produced a collection of center beliefs and practices primary to fashionable France's political tradition and democratic existence. in accordance with the influential Dictionnaire critique de l. a. république, released in France in 2002, The French Republic offers an encyclopedic survey of French republicanism because the Enlightenment. Divided into 3 sections—Time and background, ideas and Values, and Dilemmas and Debates—The French Republic starts off by way of reading each one of France’s 5 Republics and its authoritarian interludes, the second one Empire and Vichy. It then bargains thematic essays on such issues as Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity; laicity; citizenship; the clicking; immigration; decolonization; anti-Semitism; gender; the kin; cultural coverage; and the Muslim headband debates. every one essay incorporates a short consultant to additional studying. This quantity positive aspects up to date translations of a few of an important essays from the French version, in addition to twenty-two newly commissioned English-language essays, for a complete of 40 entries. Taken jointly, they supply a state-of-the paintings appraisal of French republicanism and its position in shaping modern France’s private and non-private life.