This view of France in the 1870's covers two significant spatial events - France's expansion on a global scale and the brief existence of the Paris Commune including this anarchistic culture's political language, social relations, its values, strategies and stances. Accompanying the author's text are extracts from the poetry of Arthur Rimbuad, who for Ross, was an enigmatic figure moving within and on the periphery of the Commune. He, alongside similiar thinking colleagues set up a resistance to the logic and economy of a capitalistic conception of work and posed a threat to the existing order. Making use of contemporary theory and little known archival material the author examines Communard life and an analagous strategy in Rimbaud's poetry. Her essays question the transformation of urban space, laziness as ideological resistance, the battle between anarchistic and academic geography, the swarm as collective subject and political slogans which she sees as the linking of words and action in a revolutionary period. Kristin Ross is also co-editor of "Yale French Studies" entitled "Everyday Life".