Chanzeaux, a village in Anjou

Chanzeaux is a village situated about 20 kilometres South-West of Angers, in the heart of the region of Anjou. It is a village that resembles any ordinary village in the Mauges countryside : a church, a café, a grocery shop and a beauty salon. But almost everybody in France knows Chanzeaux.

Chanzeaux owes its fame to the fact that in 1957, a group of students from the famous University of Harvard in the USA, accompanied by Professor Laurence Wylie, launched a research programme in this village. For over ten years, they studied Chanzeaux and its inhabitants, they shared their daily lives with that of the local population, familiarised themselves with the people and participated in village activities.

Today, 50 years later, we will return to Chanzeaux with two of the members of that research team who were then students : BIll Christian and Tom Yager. Tom and Bill will try to discern the changes that have set in since their last stay in the village.

Observing how a typical village like Chanzeaux has changed over the years will allow us to examine the evolution of rural France over the past fifty years.

Read more about the documentary and the Harvard connection at: http://harvardmagazine.com/2011/11/...