Good sites about social history of World War I era France?

Factual Questions
1

I know, I know, extremely specific. But that’s what I need to know about, and my Google-fu is proving to not be up to the challenge.

Basically, I want to read about what life was like for regular civilian people in Paris during World War I. Things like whether there was food rationing, how having fighting just to the north impacted what you could do and what was available in stores, what people did for fun at the time, etc. These searches are not helped by the fact that any search for ‘World War I’ anything brings up a million hits for World War II as well :smack:

I can also find a lot of things about how life was sort of rotten after the war was over for people in France, but I want to know what it was like during the war. (April 1915, to be very specific, but more general info is good enough. :))

Can any history lovers help me?

2

Under Siege: Portraits of Civilian Life in France during World War I / edited by Robert J. Young.
Publisher: New York: Berghahn Books, 2000.
Description: xxix, 185 pages : maps ; 23 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 168-173) and indexes.
ISBN: 157181132X
1571811338 (paperback)

France and the Great War, 1914-1918 / Leonard V. Smith, Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, Annette Becker; French sections translated by Helen McPhail.
Publisher: Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Description: xvi, 202 pages : ill., maps ; 24 cm.
Series: New approaches to European history ; 26
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 191-197) and index.
ISBN: 0521661765
0521666317 (paperback)

Les jours de guerre: la vie des français au jour le jour entre 1914-1918 / Yves Pourcher.
Publisher: Paris: Plon, c1994.
Description: 546 pages; 23 cm.
Series: Civilisations et mentalités
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 2259003729

3

Thanks, but I was looking for websites. It makes me sad to think I might need to buy books just to research for a short story (which I am not writing for school, you are not doing my homework for me, don’t worry.) I don’t imagine I will find these types of books at ye olde crappie local library. :frowning:

4

Enter the ISBN into Wikipedia’s Book Sources search engine to find libraries near you that have the books.

5

Is the library so crappy it won’t do inter-library loan? Check with the librarian and find out.

6

I’ve raved about the series on the Dope before, but the final episode of the BBC’s The Edwardians in Colour sounds exactly what you want: The Civilians’ Story is an excellent TV documentary about everyday life in WWI France, using the photography collections of the Albert Kahn museum outside Paris.

Whether it’s online or not - or via your local library - I don’t know.

7

Ooooh, thank you. :slight_smile: It’s on Google Video and I will watch it. Thanks a lot. :slight_smile: