The book begins with the Third Republic (a time when the French understood themselves as the avant-garde in monarchical Europe), a period of colonial expansion as well as demographic stagnation, and moves through the century: the First World War, the ‘lost peace’ and the turbulent interwar period; the ‘strange war’ of 1939-40 against Nazi Germany, the subsequent occupation, collaboration as well as resistance under the Vichy Regime; the drama of decolonisation with wars in Vietnam and Algeria, and the defining year of 1958 that brought -+ the French constitution, which weathered the shocks of May 1968 to stay in force to the present day; the takeover of power by Mitterand’s socialists in 1981 and Mitterand’s role in shaping the turn of the era in 1989/90. Finally, Waechter describes the developments that led to the unsettled nation of today.