Colette Wilson identifies a critical blind-spot in French studies which since the 1960s has focused primarily on representations of the Commune by writers and artists who were either Communards themselves or at least sympathetic to the Communard cause. New critical approaches are instead set to work on neglected texts (by Maxime Du Camp), marginalised aspects of the illustrated press (Le Monde illustré), early photography (Charles Marville, Edouard Baldus, and Charles Soulier) and a selection of novels by Emile Zola. Wilson writes clearly and authoritatively and her book will be of interest to second/third and final year undergraduates, postgraduate students and academics working on France in the nineteenth century from a number of different perspectives – war and revolution studies, cultural studies, history and cultural memory, literature, art history, photography, the illustrated press, city studies and human geography.