Rebuilding the Hometown

Rural Inventions: The French Countryside after 1945

When anxiety becomes the tone of the times, people will begin to beautify the countryside and pastoral areas.
Rural people are eager to move to cities, while city dwellers are flocking to the countryside to seek relaxation;
Farmers are forced to find other ways to make a living, while “farmers” become cultural icons and advertisers’ darlings;
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The countryside holds the deepest anxieties in every modern heart.
It also breeds new hope.
A masterpiece by a professor at the University of California, deconstructing the myth of contemporary "rural utopia".
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【Content Introduction】
In post-World War II France, the modernization process and explosive economic growth destroyed the original economic structure and environment of the rural areas. The rural population left their homes, and scholars and politicians asserted that "the countryside is dead" and "the farmers are dead."
However, the book points out that during this same period, not only were farmers actively embracing modernization, but "peasant life and rural landscapes captured the French imagination," even becoming a contemporary myth that continues to pervade the world. Faced with overcrowded cities, unsatisfactory urban life, and alienating work, people invariably turned their attention to the countryside, re-imbuing rural life with symbolic and material value based on their needs, seeking an "antidote to modernization." This, in turn, allowed the countryside to regain its place in the modern world. Rural society did not disappear with the disappearance of farmers. On the contrary, the constant reshaping of the relationship between rural and urban areas has imbued the French countryside with new vitality and even provided different possibilities for France's modernization.
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【Editor's Recommendation】
Challenging the "rural decline theory," demystifying the "idyllic utopia," and analyzing the true vitality of modern rural areas. Public perceptions of rural areas are currently experiencing unprecedented polarization. Some argue that "rural areas are dead" and no longer worth discussing. Others emphasize that "rural areas" represent a simple, poetic life, preserving virtues lost in cities and even modern society.
However, Sarah Farmer, the author of this book and a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, points out that these two perspectives actually lead to the same conclusion: both are misinterpretations of the contemporary countryside. The former ignores the farmers' active response to modernization, while the latter is based on a stereotyped urban-rural dichotomy. Crudely equating the countryside with "the opposite of the ills of urban life" effectively stifles the possibility of change—no matter how good the countryside may be, it no longer belongs to us in modern cities.
In order to show the modern urban-rural relationship, the author takes the "rural fever" in France in the second half of the 20th century as an example, pointing out that while France's urbanization process was advancing explosively, "peasant life and rural landscape" did "firmly grasp the imagination of the French", but it was precisely this opportunity that the French countryside seized, bursting with vitality again, and finding its place in modern society again.
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Focusing on urban-rural interaction and public participation, this book deconstructs the history of rural "reinvention." While traditional rural studies often focus on the economic and organizational structures of rural society itself, Sarah Farmer, the author of this book, focuses on how rural and urban areas interact within the urbanization process. This approach removes the static, isolated "rural" from the research object, revealing new issues. Most intriguing is the author's detailed deconstruction of the various modern constructions of the "rural," showing how the government and the public, urban and rural residents, as well as politicians, businesspeople, and intellectuals, shape the image and meaning of the "rural" according to their respective needs.
In his detailed arguments, the author uses case studies that are rich in life, transcending cultural and temporal boundaries. For example, he explores how an unused farmhouse was hyped up as a hot property, the real-life experiences of urban youth in rural areas, and how the "rural" has become a resounding topic in literary and artistic circles. Even today's Chinese readers can easily relate to these stories.
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⭐ Confronting the ills of contemporary cities, addressing the root causes of contemporary anxiety, and analyzing how rural areas can foster new possibilities for the future. All the shaping of rural areas stems from the inner unease and anxiety of modern people. We can all sense the progress of our times and economy, but progress also brings personal challenges. As we cramp our living spaces in shared apartments and struggle to breathe on crowded subways, imagining another, better life we ​​once had becomes a natural antidote to urban ills. Believing that there might be other options, even if it's just wishful thinking, gives us the courage to continue living.
However, only by confronting the root causes of our imaginations can we truly heal the ills of our times. This is precisely the greatest significance of this book for you and me: the countryside is not only a temporary respite for modern people; it also offers us the space to rethink the relationship between individuals and our times, between tradition and the future, and the resolve to question, challenge, and change. After all, on the other side of the world, many are striving to prove that no one should become a victim of modernization.
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【Expert Recommendation】
"Remaking the Countryside explores the modernization of rural France after 1945, when the consolidation of agricultural holdings pushed rural populations into rapidly expanding cities. Challenging the old binary of modern cities and backward provinces, Farmer explores how rural areas adapted to these changes... Short, easy to read, and beautifully illustrated, this book reveals the symbiotic relationship between urban and rural France in a format that will engage students and scholars alike."
-- "choose"
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Sarah Farmer beautifully reinterprets the relationship between urban and rural areas in post-World War II France. She refutes the narrative of the "vanishing peasant," arguing that the mutual influence between rural and urban France resulted in renewal and transformation, not decline and desolation. From rural men and women who bought washing machines and joined environmental movements to urban Frenchmen who sought refuge in peasant memoirs and country homes, Farmer convincingly argues for a connection, not a dislocation, between urban and rural areas. This is essential reading for anyone studying France during this period.
—Venus Bivar, Agrarian History
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"Remaking Rurality captures a particularly important moment in the relationship between urban and rural areas and presents four original case studies... In exploring the question of why so many of us are drawn to the countryside long after it seemed to have vanished, the book deftly illuminates how we continue to reshape the rural in our contemporary world."
—Joseph Boleyn, The American Historical Review
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"This is a fascinating and timely book for historians of modern France, exploring the complex relationship between city and countryside, the renegotiation of these spaces in the postwar world, and the often contentious migrations between the two. What emerges is not a vision of the countryside as forgotten, but one continually rediscovered by successive waves of French people seeking to reconcile the allure of rural life with the desires of consumer society… Farmers are not objects to be modernized or reformed, but ‘stewards of the natural world’, active participants in the complex, multi-layered, and ongoing debate over France’s relationship to its terroir."
—Andrew Smith, The English Historical Review
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In this shocking new book, Sarah Farmer does not rehash the old tune about "rural exodus" and "disappearance of rural civilization". Instead, she presents a rural society full of creativity: young farmers, new left-wing utopians, urban residents who regard the countryside as their "second home", and ecologists committed to building a "new countryside" are reshaping the economic and cultural landscape of rural France.
—Herrick Chapman, New York University

2024-11-01

广西师范大学出版社

mountain

288

9787559874597