Martyn Lyons, Napoleon Bonaparte and the Legacy of the French Revolution (1994), is a good overview. On Napoleon’s life, see Felix Markham, Napoleon (1963); Jean Tulard, Napoleon: The Myth of the Saviour (1984; originally published in French, 1977); and Geoffrey Ellis, Napoleon (1997, reissued 2000). The best volume on the Napoleonic regime in France is Louis Bergeron, France Under Napoleon (1981; originally published in French, 1972). Owen Connelly, Blundering to Glory: Napoleon’s Military Campaigns, rev. ed. (1999), is a critical and incisive analysis. For the views of historians across the generations, see Pieter Geyl, Napoleon: For and Against (1949, reissued 1976; originally published in Dutch, 1946). Isser Woloch Jeremy David Popkin France since 1815
Volumes 2 and 3 of the already mentioned Alfred Cobban, A History of Modern France, 3 vol. (1957–62, reprinted 1969), present the period from the First Empire to the Republics in a sophisticated synthesis. Gordon Wright, France in Modern Times: From the Enlightenment to the Present, 5th ed. (1995); and Jeremy D. Popkin, History of Modern France, 4th ed. (2012), are general surveys. Good introductions to the periods they cover are H.A.C. Collingham and R.S. Alexander, The July Monarchy 1830–1848 (1988); Maurice Agulhon, The Republican Experiment 1848–1852 (1983; originally published in French, 1973); Alain Plessis, Rise and Fall of the Second Empire 1852–1871 (1985); Jean-Marie Mayeur and Madeleine Réberioux, The Third Republic from Its Origins to the Great War 1871–1914 (1984; originally published in French, 1973); Eugen Weber, The Hollow Years: France in the 1930s (1994); Julian Jackson, France: The Dark Years, 1940–1944 (2002); Jean-Pierre Rioux, The Fourth Republic 1944–1958 (1987; originally published in French, 1980–83); and Serge Berstein, The Republic of de Gaulle 1958–1969 (1993). Serge Berstein, La France de l’expansion: l’apogée Pompidou 1969–1974 (1995), continues the story through the presidency of de Gaulle’s successor. Annie Moulin, Peasantry and Society in France Since 1789 (1991; originally published in French, 1988); and Gérard Noiriel, Workers in French Society in the 19th and 20th Centuries (1990; originally published in French, 1986), are good introductions to social history.
Surveys of special topics on all or most of the period since 1815 include René Rémond, The Right Wing in France from 1815 to de Gaulle, 2nd ed. (1969; originally published in French, 1954), tracing change and continuity of the political right; Gérard Cholvy and Yves-Marie Hilaire, Histoire religieuse de la France contemporaine, 3 vol. (1985–88, reissued 2000), an analysis of the role of various religions; and Raoul Girardet, La Société militaire dans la France contemporaine, 1815–1939, updated ed. (1998), on the changing role and composition of the military corps. The role of France in world affairs is emphasized in Pierre Renouvin, Le XIXe, 2 vol. (1954–55), on the developments of the 19th century, part of the series Histoire des relations internationales. François Caron, An Economic History of Modern France, trans. from French (1979, reissued 1983), revises older views about France’s rate of growth. Theodore Zeldin, France, 1848–1945, 2 vol. (1973–77), explores modern French society, stressing its complexity and continuity. Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France: 1870–1914 (1976), argues that a sense of nationhood came to rural France only in the late 19th century.
Period studies include Guillaume de Bertier de Sauvigny, The Bourbon Restoration (1966, originally published in French, 1955), the standard work on the period 1815–30; Claire Goldberg Moses, French Feminism in the Nineteenth Century (1984), which narrates the growth of women’s movements; Bonnie G. Smith, Ladies of the Leisure Class (1981), a model study of women’s lives; David H. Pinkney, Decisive Years in France, 1840–1847 (1986), arguing that France changed fundamentally in these years; Roger Price, The French Second Republic: A Social History (1972), a thoughtful reevaluation; Philip Nord, The Republican Moment (1995), which analyzes the rise of opposition to the Second Empire; Michael B. Miller, The Bon Marché: Bourgeois Culture and the Department Store, 1869–1920 (1981); Michael Howard, The Franco-Prussian War: The German Invasion of France, 1870–1871, 2nd ed. (2001), a model study; Stewart Edwards, The Paris Commune, 1871 (1971), a balanced reevaluation; and Eugen Weber, France fin de siècle (1986). Roger Shattuck, The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant Garde in France, 1885 to World War I, rev. ed. (1968, reissued 1984), is a brilliant survey of Parisian culture of the period. Charles Rearick, Pleasures of the Belle Époque: Entertainment and Festivity in Turn-of-the-Century France (1985), describes the high life in Montmartre. D.W. Brogan, France Under the Republic: The Development of Modern France (1870–1939) (1940, reprinted 1974), is a classic account. Jean-Denis Bredin, The Affair: The Case of Alfred Dreyfus (1986; originally published in French, 1983), provides a highly readable account of the great crisis.