Part 1, Chapters 7-8 Summary and Analysis

This chapter focuses on Taine. Where Renan looked to the past, Taine looks to the present and his works exhibit the characteristics of the bourgeois nineteenth century. He tried to convey the reality of the France in which he lived. Many people left the country and were living in exile. There wasn't much interest in politics among the artists and thinkers after Louis Bonaparte came to power in 1851. Taine was distancing himself from romanticism at the time as were most others. Like Renan, Taine remained more or less detached taking a scientific approach to history. According to this view, history could be approached like a science, but the difference lay in the fact that there is no way to measure quantities. He examines works of literature as if they were specimens.

When the Commune was established in...