French Mediterraneans: Transnational and Imperial Histories. Edited by Patricia M. E. Lorcin and Todd Shepard (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 2016) 426 pp. $65.00

The editors of this voluminous work, which spans a period from the end of the eighteenth century to decolonization in the mid-twentieth century, seek to explore the uniquely French contribution to the construction of the Mediterranean as a unified space—a view of the sea that was largely imposed on populations of its southern and eastern shores by western imperial powers. However, the majority of contributors to this volume were not trained as historians of France, the French empire, or European states. In bringing these scholars together, the editors were not so much interested in considering non-European actors or resistance to French colonialism but rather to bring the work of these historians, with their different historiographical concerns, into conversation with historians of France and the empire. The guiding idea is to convince all historians to take such work seriously in writing transnational and imperial histories that do not simply “export questions...