Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Revolution. Visions of Revolution. The Revolutionary passion play. Explaining Revolution. The decline of the Revolutionary tradition -- 2. War. France after Waterloo, 1815-70. France after Sedan, 1870-1914 -- 3. A New Order. A Catholic order. A Liberal order. A Republican order. A Socialist order. The Bonapartist synthesis. A national order. Conclusion: the search for a 'moral order' -- 4. Paranoia. The Great Revolutionary conspiracy: Freemasons, Protestants, Jews. The great reactionary conspiracy: the Jesuits. Conclusion: the usefulness of credulity -- 5. Power and the People, 1814-1914. The bureaucracy. Assemblies. Elections. Parties and pressure groups. Reigning and ruling. Those who ruled -- 6. The Government of Minds. Variations on the Napoleonic system. The State against the Church, 1880-1905. Conclusion: the 'two Frances'? -- 7. The State and the Economy. Economic and social consequences of the Revolutionary period. Survival and adaptation, 1815-1914: The French model. Conclusion: benefits and costs of the French model -- 8. Power and the Disempowered. Women. Children. The poor, the sick, the deviant -- 9. Paris: Seat of Power -- 10. Power and the Sword -- 11. Power beyond the Hexagon: The Empire. Ideas of Empire. Acquiring the Empire. Ruling the Empire -- 12. Private Identities: Self, Gender, Family. Self. Gender. Family -- 13. Collective Identities: Community and Religion. Communities. Religion -- 14. Region and 'Mentality'. The Revolution and the emergence of political 'mentalities'. Persistence and development of political 'mentalities': 1814-51. New wine in old bottles, 1871-c. 1940 -- 15. Imagined Communities: Class. The classes laborieuses in post-Revolutionary France. Politics and languages of class during the 'Era of Revolutions'. Crisis and conflict, c. 1880-1910: the making of 'proletariat' and 'peasantry'? Conclusion: Class, State and Revolution -- 16. Imagined Communities: the Nation. Peasants into Frenchmen. Nationhood and nationalism. The limits of national identity -- 17. The Impossible Restoration, 1814-30. France and the Bourbons, 1814. Napoleon's Hundred Days, February-June 1815. 'Pardon and oblivion', 1815-20. The rule of the Ultras, 1821-27. The Liberal revival, 1825-27. Charles X reigns and rules, 1827-30. The 'Three Glorious Days', 27-29 July 1830 -- 18. The July Monarchy, 1830-48. The best of republics: the invention of Orleanism, July-August 1830. Post-Revolutionary conflicts: 1830-34: 'movement' and 'resistance'. 1840: the turning point. Louis-Philippe and Guizot, 1840-48: the dangers of prudence. The unscheduled revolution, 22-24 February 1848 -- 19. The Second Republic, 1848-51. Lost illusions, February-June 1848. The road to civil war: May-June 1848. The surprises of democracy: Bonaparte and the democrates-socialistes. Conclusion: the politics of the impossible -- 20. The Triumph and Disaster of Bonapartism, 1851-71: Closing the Era of Revolutions. Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte: the power of fantasy. 'The Empire means peace': promoting economic growth. Sowing the wind: the principle of nationalities, 1854-60. 1860: the watershed. The revival of opposition and the liberalization of the regime, 1860-70. Reaping the whirlwind, 1863-67. Towards a 'liberal empire', 1867-70. The road to Sedan, July-September 1870. The politics of war, 1870-71. The final eruption: the Paris Commune, March-May 1871 -- 21. The Survival of the Republic, 1871-90. Monsieur Thiers's Republic, 1871-73. The Dukes' Republic, 1873-77. The Republicans' Republic, 1879-85. General Boulanger and the emergence of radical nationalism, 1886-89 -- 22. New Politics and Old, 1890-1911. New alignments, c. 1890-98. The Dreyfus affair and its aftermath, 1894-99: the last triumph of the Revolution. The Radicals' Republic, 1902-9. Conclusion: from mystique to politique -- 23. To the Sacred Union, 1914. Prologue: from Sedan to Morocco, 1870-1905. Military precautions. The 1914 crisis: two assassinations. France goes to war: the 'Sacred Union'.