BOOK LAUNCH: Inventing the modern region: Basque identity and the French nation-state

This book explores the process by which the French Basque country acquired a folkloric regional identity in the long nineteenth century. It argues that, despite its origins in pre-modern customs, this stereotypical identity was invented as part of France's process of nation-building. The abolition of privileges in 1789 prompted a new interest in local culture as the defining feature of provincial France, shaping the transition from the pre-'modern' province to the 'modern' region. The relationship between the region and the nation, however, was difficult. Regional culture favoured the integration of the French Basque provinces into the French nation-state but also challenged the authority of the central state. As a result, Basque region-building reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the unitary model of French nationhood, in the nineteenth century as well as today.

Talitha Ilacqua holds degrees from the University of Cambridge and King’s College London, where she completed both her BA and her PhD. After finishing her doctorate, she spent two years at St. Antony’s College, Oxford as Deakin fellow and two years at Yale as Marie Curie fellow. She is now Career Development Fellow in Modern European History at Durham. She’s the author of a number of articles on Basque identity and French conservatism in the long nineteenth century. “Inventing the Modern Region” is her first book.