Volume 45, Number 19 · December 3, 1998
A la Recherche du Temps Perdu
By Tony Judt
Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past
edited by Pierre Nora, English-language edition edited by Lawrence D. Kritzman, translated by Arthur Goldhammer
Volume I: Conflicts and Divisions
Columbia University Press, 651 pp., $37.50
Volume II: Traditions
Columbia University Press, 591 pp., $37.50
Volume III: Symbols
Columbia University Press, 751 pp., $37.50
As you drive along the magnificently engineered, impeccably landscaped autoroutes of France, you cannot miss the unusual information panels set off to the right at frequent intervals. Conspicuous but somehow unobtrusive, in warm earth colors, these cluster in pairs. First comes a panel of two or three symbols—sufficiently simple and pointed to arouse the interest of the speeding motorist, but not immediately self-explanatory: a bunch of grapes, perhaps, or a stylized depiction of a building or a mountain.
Review, 7827 words
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