Volumes I and II chronicled differences and similarities of the political, social, and cultural underpinnings of French national identity; volume III focuses on the emblems that signify "Frenchness" to people around the world. Symbols includes thirteen essays on cultural icons from Joan of Arc to Descartes; the national motto of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"; the tricolor flag; and the French language itself. Pierre Nora's closing essay on commemoration provides an overview of the series.

Realms of Memory -- winner, for volume I, of the 1996 French-American Foundation Translation Award -- powerfully demonstrates how a nation can both recover and rediscover its identity through remembrance; how rewriting history can forge new paradigms of cultural identity, and how meanings attached to an event can be as significant as the event itself.