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Twilight of the Elites

Prosperity, the Periphery, and the Future of France

Christophe Guilluy Malcolm DeBevoise

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Hardback

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English
Yale University Press
26 February 2019
A passionate account of how the gulf between France’s metropolitan elites and its working classes are tearing the country apart

 

Christophe Guilluy, a French geographer, makes the case that France has become an “American society”—one that is both increasingly multicultural and increasingly unequal. The divide between the global economy’s winners and losers in today’s France has replaced the old left–right split, leaving many on “the periphery.”

 

As Guilluy shows, there is no unified French economy, and those cut off from the country’s new economic citadels suffer disproportionately on both economic and social fronts. In Guilluy’s analysis, the lip service paid to the idea of an “open society” in France is a smoke screen meant to hide the emergence of a closed society, walled off for the benefit of the upper classes. The ruling classes in France are reaching a dangerous stage, he argues; without the stability of a growing economy, the hope for those excluded from growth is extinguished, undermining the legitimacy of a multicultural nation.

By:  
Translated by:  
Imprint:   Yale University Press
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 210mm,  Width: 140mm,  Spine: 19mm
Weight:   340g
ISBN:   9780300233766
ISBN 10:   0300233760
Pages:   184
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Out of Print

Christophe Guilluy is a French geographer and the author of several books, including La France périphérique: Comment on a sacrifié les classes populaires. He also writes occasionally for The Guardian.

Reviews for Twilight of the Elites: Prosperity, the Periphery, and the Future of France

This book will make you fret and question your moral integrity. -Financial Times Guilluy, whose work is not universally admired in France, particularly by academic geographers and many on the left, seems to have seen it all coming. So there will be considerable interest in his latest work, published in French as Le Crepuscule de la France d'en haut in 2016 and now, by Yale. In a further development of his now-familiar argument, he tackles head on - and with great virulence - the flip side of La France peripherique, those he considers largely responsible for the country's profound social, economic and political dislocation: hipsters, who the French call bourgeois-bohemes or bobos. - Jon Henley, The Guardian An indispensable guide to understanding the fears and frustrations of an increasingly permanent underclass-not just in France, but throughout the world. . . . Disturbing and affecting . . . [Guilluy] has hit on something profound that extends well beyond the borders of France. -Jonathan A. Knee, New York Times [Guilluy] argues that France now has all the conditions in place for a `slave rebellion.' . . . [His] polemic seems all the more prescient in light of the gilets jaunes protesters, who have caused havoc in Paris. -Philip Delves Broughton, Wall Street Journal This is a book with direct relevance outside France. Observing that metropolisation is the domestic corollary of globalisation , Guilluy cites London as the quintessential ... citadel city . Condemning elites, speaking up for the disregarded, he writes scathing, analytical Marxist class history very effectively...essential reading - David Sexton, Evening Standard This is indeed a remarkably prescient and powerful work, which not only is a frightening and accurate analysis of what seems to be happening right now in France, but also may well be an insight into what happens next. - Andrew Hussey, Literary Review Written long before the riots began, this acute analysis explains the gilets jaunes -Peter Conradi, The Sunday Times Writing two years before the advent of the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests), Guilluy convincingly shows how, once again, it's all about class struggle. -Pepe Escobar, Asia Times


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