Flaubert in the Ruins of Paris: The Story of a Friendship, a Novel, and a Terrible Year

France suffered a humiliating defeat from Prussia and saw bloody class warfare from the summer of 1870 to the spring of 1871. Comparative literature professor Peter Brooks ’76 explains why Flaubert thought his novel, Seminal Education, was prophetic of France’s turmoil during that year in Flaubert in the Ruins of Paris (Basic).