From esprit général to civism

Throughout the period 1750 to 1914, national self-criticism prevailed in France, often associated with the advocacy of an English model of political and economic behaviour; on the other side of the Channel, in contrast, the national attitudes were commonly eulogized and the French character disliked. The book has revolved around this axis, in itself a reflection of the two nations' different histories. However, French sensitivity to suggestions from abroad did not avert a large dose of nationalism, in which the French were akin to the British.

The eighteenth century witnessed a different reception in the two countries of the motifs inherited by antiquity and the Renaissance, with the diffusion of climatology in Britain effectively blocked by Hume's strictures. Civic humanist themes, on the other hand, achieved wide currency in both nations, while social environmentalism was enhanced in Britain by stadial history and the concept of sympathy. The delineation in early and mid-nineteenth-century France of a model of civic participation as most necessary in the post-revolutionary situation found no counterpart in Britain in the same period – arguably because the virtues of civic participation were taken for granted, lying as they did deep at the core of Whiggish identity, as seen not only through radical eyes like Hazlitt's but also through those of a Froude or a Freeman. With regard to public spirit, it is tempting to summarize the contrast between the two countries as one between aspiration and description.