France reinvented itself in the aftermath of the Second World War. Emerging from the war and a succession of foreign military interventions, the French political and intellectual elites embraced regime change and launched an urgent programme of nation building. The way in which they rebuilt their nation might hold lessons for other countries in the present day, where embattled national elites confront the strategic task of building or rebuilding a nation after conflict and regime change. The leaders of former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, for example, might well examine post-conflict France for approaches that could be applied in their own context, as well as for insight into the difficulties that might have to be overcome, and the price that might have to be paid for success. This book focuses on intellectual and cultural processes, which are perhaps less tangible and less measurable than rebuilding a shattered economy and constructing workable political structures. But it shows how the subtle processes of intellectual and cultural reconstruction proved vital for France, enabling a broken and divided country to re-imagine itself as a community and piece together a viable sense of itself. Over a period of two or three years, the French elites pursued an endeavour of dogged "bricolage",¹ which combined high strategy with the spirit of resourceful improvisation, known as the "Système D".²