vice such as biting of fingers and breaking out front teeth. Even with peasants trying ever harder to avoid military service, more men were conscripted and therefore more men learned French and interacted with people outside of their home region. As more people began to interact with each other the fear of outsiders dimmed and recognized them not as enemies but as partners. The old traditions had changed. The old oral tradition of the veilee, the time spent with the community between supper and bedtime working and keeping warm, died as the peasants moved into warmer homes and began to enjoy the privacy of the family. Instead of viewing themselves only as a part of a village, people began to think of themselves as part of an ethnic group.In Weber’s conclusion, he uses his original thesis for broader implications. He rejects the arguments of anti-colonialists who protest against traditional civilizations. He sees the destruction of the old ways not as outdated but rather new ways becoming accepted. Then Mr. Weber switches his attention to third world nations. He wonders if there is any difference between what had occurred with the peasants during the first forty five years of the Third Republic and the attempts of Western imperialism to change the inhabitants of non-industrialized nations, yet he recognizes that French peasants were directly involved in the political process. I enjoyed the book quite a bit; I found it to be very informative of the lives of the majority of the people and their daily struggles just to survive. Before reading this book, I didn’t know how many different dialects there were of a particular language and how difficult it was to have a conversation with someone only twenty miles away. It also brought to my attention how much differently people thought of themselves then than we do now. The only thing wrong with the book in my opinion is that Mr. Weber tends to ramble on into insignificant...
