When Champagne Became French: Wine and the Making of a National Identity

by Kolleen M. Guy

Overview

Winner of the 2002 Manuscript Award from Phi Alpha ThetaWinner of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards for English Wine, Best Wine History Book, and Best Book on French WineWinner of the Clicquot Wine Book of the Year Competition

Winner of the Outstanding Manuscript Award from Phi Alpha Theta, this work explains how nationhood emerges by viewing countries as cultural artifacts, a product of "invented traditions." In the case of France, scholars sharply disagree, not only over the nature of French national identity but also over the extent to which diverse and sometimes hostile provincial communities became integrated into the nation. In When Champagne Became French: Wine and the Making of a National Identity, Kolleen M. Guy offers a new perspective on this debate by looking at one of the central elements in French national culture--luxury wine--and the rural communities that profited from its production.

Focusing on the development of the champagne industry between 1820 and 1920, Guy explores the role of private interests in the creation of national culture and in the nation-building process. Drawing on concepts from social and cultural history, she shows how champagne helped fuel the revolution in consumption as social groups searched for new ways to develop cohesion and to establish status. By the end of the nineteenth century, Guy concludes, the champagne-producing provinces in the department of Marne had developed a rhetoric of French identity that promoted its own marketing success as national. This ability to mask local interests as national concerns convinced government officials of the need, at both national and international levels, to protect champagne as a French patrimony.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801887475
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	09/01/2007
Series:	The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science , #121
Edition description:	20
Pages:	280
Sales rank:	442,788
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.73(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Kolleen M. Guy is an associate professor of history at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Consuming the Nation: Champagne Marketing and Bourgeois Rituals, 1789–1914
Chapter 3. Industry meets Terroir: Champagne Producers in the Marne
Chapter 4. Resistance and Identity: Cultivation Methods and the Wine Community, 1789–1890
Chapter 5. Boundaries: The Limits of the "True" Champagne, 1900–1910
Chapter 6. Revolution and Stalemate: The Revolt of 1911
Chapter 7. Conclusion: Champagne and Modern France
Appendix
Notes
Bibliographic Essay
Index

What People are Saying About This

W. Scott Haine

The first modern scholarly study of the production, consumption, and representation of champagne. Guy's prose is both inviting and accessible, deftly integrating theories from sociology, anthropology, philosophy, economics, and cultural history in a coherent, persuasive, and analytical narrative. When Champagne Became French is both scholarly and readable.

From the Publisher

The first modern scholarly study of the production, consumption, and representation of champagne. Guy's prose is both inviting and accessible, deftly integrating theories from sociology, anthropology, philosophy, economics, and cultural history in a coherent, persuasive, and analytical narrative. When Champagne Became French is both scholarly and readable.
—W. Scott Haine, Holy Names College, California

Reading Group Guide

The first modern scholarly study of the production, consumption, and representation of champagne. Guy's prose is both inviting and accessible, deftly integrating theories from sociology, anthropology, philosophy, economics, and cultural history in a coherent, persuasive, and analytical narrative. When Champagne Became French is both scholarly and readable.

Editorial Reviews

[Guy] convincingly describes how the circumstances surrounding the evolution of this regional beverage explain changes within French society . . . Students writing research papers in the fields of gastronomy would find this an excellent model of how they should approach similar topics.
--Massachusetts Beverage Business

A fascinating book . . . [Guy] demonstrates how a region with few environmental advantages for grape and wine production was able not only to succeed but to become synonymous with grace, style, and joyful gatherings.
--Choice

A fascinating study of champagne in the years before the Great War . . . Guy makes us consider the current popularity of products which, like champagne, have a strong regional identity and their increasing centrality to contemporary France's sense of identity.
--Times Literary Supplement

A strong contribution to our understanding of the processes by which French national identity was constructed.
--James. R. Lehning, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

Excellent book.
--Harry W. Paul, Journal of Modern History

Guy's fascinating book . . . traces in extensive detail the forces at work to transform this formerly regional product into a world-recognized symbol of French patrimony, elitism, and spirit. In lively style, Guy chronicles the history of champagne production in France and, in turn, the history of France itself through eras of industrialization and war. All readers will find this book absorbing: history buffs, novices to the bubbly, and full-fledged experts.
--Janine Sutherlin, France Today

Guy's illustrated book is a well-researched look at one of France's proudest achievements.
--Lori D. Kranz, Bloomsbury Review

The denouement of Kolleen Guy's fascinating book is the violent explosion known as the 'revolution of Champagne' in 1911. How the revolt occurred is the heart of this skillful study of a region's economy and society and its relationship to the nation state.
--Thomas Brennan, Journal of Social History

From the Publisher

Excellent book.

Journal of Modern History - Harry W. Paul

A fascinating book . . . [Guy] demonstrates how a region with few environmental advantages for grape and wine production was able not only to succeed but to become synonymous with grace, style, and joyful gatherings.

Choice

Guy's illustrated book is a well-researched look at one of France's proudest achievements.

Bloomsbury Review - Lori D. Kranz

A strong contribution to our understanding of the processes by which French national identity was constructed.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History - James. R. Lehning

Guy's fascinating book . . . traces in extensive detail the forces at work to transform this formerly regional product into a world-recognized symbol of French patrimony, elitism, and spirit. In lively style, Guy chronicles the history of champagne production in France and, in turn, the history of France itself through eras of industrialization and war. All readers will find this book absorbing: history buffs, novices to the bubbly, and full-fledged experts.

France Today - Janine Sutherlin

The denouement of Kolleen Guy's fascinating book is the violent explosion known as the 'revolution of Champagne' in 1911. How the revolt occurred is the heart of this skillful study of a region's economy and society and its relationship to the nation state.

Journal of Social History - Thomas Brennan

A fascinating study of champagne in the years before the Great War . . . Guy makes us consider the current popularity of products which, like champagne, have a strong regional identity and their increasing centrality to contemporary France's sense of identity.

Times Literary Supplement

[Guy] convincingly describes how the circumstances surrounding the evolution of this regional beverage explain changes within French society . . . Students writing research papers in the fields of gastronomy would find this an excellent model of how they should approach similar topics.

Massachusetts Beverage Business