THEODORE ZELDIN is a Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford. His two-volume history, France 1848-1945 (1973,1977) received international acclaim: The Times called it "brilliant, original, enter-taining and inexhaustible"; Paris Match said that is was "the most perspicacious, the most deeply researched, the liveliest and the most enthralling panorama of French passions." His other books include the novel Happiness (1988). Theodore Zeldin has been awarded the Wolfson Prize and figures on Magazine Litteraire's list of the hundreds most important thinkers in the world today.