France regions (five of which are situated overseas) span a combined area of and a total population of 67.3 million (). France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille and Nice. During the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, holding it until the arrival of Germanic Franks in 476, who formed the Kingdom of France. France emerged as a
The Age of Capital: 1848–1875 The Age of Capital: 1848–1875 The Age of Capital: 1848–1875 is a book by Eric Hobsbawm, first published in 1975. It is the second in a trilogy of books about "the long 19th century" (coined by Hobsbawm), preceded by "" and followed by "". A fourth book, "The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991", acts as a sequel to the trilogy. Hobsbawm analyzed the 19th and 20th century processes of modernization using what he calls the dual revolution thesis, which recognized the dual importance of the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution as mid-wives of modern European history,