Includes bibliographical references (pages [223]-233) and index.
Introduction: Historians and Modernity -- "A la Table de Magny": Men of Letters and Historical Writing in Nineteenth-Century Paris -- Ordering Time: The Problem of French Chronology -- God and the Historian: Sainte-Beuve's Port-Royal -- Lost Worlds: Lucien Febvre and the Alien Past -- Private Lives and Historical Knowledge -- Nobles as Signifiers: Making Sense of a Class Structure -- An Alternative Path to Rural History -- Conclusion: On the Politics of Social History