titious. He was insensitive to beauty, indifferent to his surroundings. He was envious and detested anyone who tried to better himself”(p.6). Also given is the city dwellers opinion of the peasant “Many people see little difference between this class of men and the animals they use to farm our lands; this manner of thinking is very old and it is likely that it will endure a very long time.”(p.7) In the second chapter Mr. Weber shows just how superstitious people were and how uneducated they were. And in contrast the less educated people are the less of a part of a nation they become. Overall, the first eleven chapters give a good explanation of what was going on before and helps give a more complete picture.The next nine chapters are the most important part of the book because it explains how peasants were made into Frenchmen by modernization. A focus is placed on the expansion and improvement of roads, military service, and education as the primary ways the change was made. There was always a good road system in France but there were still many isolated villages. New roads made for isolated areas to become more of a connected part of France. As more regions were better connected to France more peasant children attended school with the aid of educational reforms of Jules Ferry were implemented. As more peasants were educated the regional differences began to blur and eventually assimilate into a single French culture. As more people attended schools and moved to the city, they began to be much more involved with the politics of France instead of being left in the countryside to farm and scarcely care about what goes on other than war. The parents of these newly educated peasants still spoke their regional languages; they would eventually die out along with them. The onset of wars caused much more strict enforcement into military service and more drastic measures were taken by peasants to avoid military ser...
