Alain Corbin is a professor at University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne. He is the leading figure among French historians who have concentrated on "ordinary people." Known for his originality and iconoclastic work, Corbin is the author of The Foul and the Fragrant, The Lure of the Sea, and, most recently, Village Bells: The Culture of the Senses in Nineteenth-Century French Countryside. He lives in Paris, France.

• Prelude: Investigating the Torpor of an Ordinary Existence 1: A Lifespace 2: "The Low Multitudes" 3: Elective Affairs and Kinship Relations 4: The Language of the Illiterate 5: The Clog Makers, the Spinners, and the Glove Makers 6: The Pleasure of 'Arrangements" 7: The Past Decomposed 8: Invasions 9: "The Audacity of the Poor" 10: The Parishioner, the Guard, and the Voter Notes Index

A splendid job...put[s] flesh on the bones of a small society and a corner of France that stand out more clearly thanks to his work. -- Eugen Weber American Historical Review An outstanding example of 'speculative history'from one of France's greatest social and cultural historians... Masterfully translated by Arthur Goldhammer, this work will be particularly fascinating for all those who are willing to accept its speculative aspects and who appreciate the possibilities of imaginative history written with honesty and grace. Choice Corbin has achieved a scholarly triumph. Publishers Weekly Corbin puts the pieces of this lifetime together in a way that is rich in insight. -- Theresa M. McBride The Historian This work is a product of a renowned historian's quest to study ordinary people instead of elites... Arguing that the current social history of ordinary people is based on the traces left by very unusual people who are wrongly taken to be spokesmen for the rest, Corbin seeks to rectify this by studying someone so obscure, unimportant, and anonymous as to be totally unremembered. -- Iorweth Prothero Labour/Le Travail