Rural Inventions: The French Countryside after 1945

At the close of the twentieth century, even as globalization spurred the growth of megacities worldwide, inhabiting the French countryside had become an internationally-shared fantasy and practice. Accounts of moving into old farmhouses were bestsellers, and houses and barns built by peasants had been renovated as second homes throughout the rural hinterland. Such developments, Sarah Farmer argues, did not simply stem from nostalgia for a rural past or a desire to invest in real estate. Rat...