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This research colloquium brings together historians of nineteenth and  and twentieth-century France to explore the issue of &#8220; political  legacies&#8221;. It is one that overshadows, of course, the history of a  country that has lived with the profound and ambiguous legacy of its  revolution. That was a political movement devoted to liberty, although  what that liberty actually and was and how it would be realized, were  open questions then and thereafter. As historians, we often talk about  the 'burden' of the past - and it was often the case that a political  legacy served to constrain the way that people thought about the  present, seeing it through the hopes and fears that had been experienced  by previous generations. But political legacies often had a more  positive impact that that suggests. They served to shape the way in  which contemporaries sought to harness the opportunities of the present,  and orient the expectations of the future. In short, we shall focus on  the dynamic and ambiguous nature of political legacies as one of the  ways in which the past inevitably shapes the political space of the  present. The colloquium will be an occasion to examine the role of  political legacies in a comparative light, and to explore what other  disciplines (notably political science) have to tell us about political  legacies. It will also be a moment for British historians to honour the  contribution of Professor Malcolm Crook to the discipline of French  History, notably through his many years as editor of French History.ProgrammeMorning session: 10.45 am - 12.45 pm11.00 : Welcome from the Directeur de la Maison Fran&#231;aise d'Oxford, M. Luc Borot11.10 : First Session : Political Legacies and the French RevolutionChair and Discussant: Julian Swann    Michel Biard (University of Rouen), &#171; Machine jacobine &#187; et &#171; centralisation jacobine &#187;, deux fantasmes historiographiques revisit&#233;s &#224; l'aune d'un exemple local : la Soci&#233;t&#233; populaire de Honfleur.        Alan Forrest (University of York), A Military Legacy: The Army and Politics in Nineteenth-Century France.Afternoon session: 14.00 pm - 18.00pm14.00: Second Session: The Weight of Political Legacies in Nineteenth and early Twentieth-Century, FranceChair and Discussant: Colin Heywood (University of Nottingham)    Julian Wright (University of Durham), Between the present and the future? the uncertain reformist legacy of French socialism.    Christophe Prochasson (&#201;cole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris), Fran&#231;ois Furet, la r&#233;volution et le futur pass&#233; de la gauche.16.00: Third Session: The Legacies of the Recent PastChair and Discussant: Julian Jackson (Queen Mary, University of London)    Robert Gildea (Worcester College, Oxford), The Legacy of the Resistance in the oral testimony of 1968 activists    Sudhir Hazareesingh (Balliol College, Oxford), The Myth of Charles de Gaulle    Jean-Pascal Daloz (CNRS-MFO), Political Representation in France and the enduring tension between Republican ideals and court style18.00: Concluding Remarks by Professor William Doyle, University of Bristol.