France: An Adventure History

by Graham Robb

Overview

A wholly original history of France, filled with a lifetime’s knowledge and passion—by the author of the New York Times bestseller Parisians.

Beginning with the Roman army’s first recorded encounter with the Gauls and ending in the era of Emmanuel Macron, France takes readers on an endlessly entertaining journey through French history. Frequently hilarious, always surprising, Graham Robb’s France combines the stylistic versatility of a novelist with the deep understanding of a scholar.

Robb’s own adventures and discoveries while living, working, and traveling in France connect this tour through space and time with on-the-ground experience. There are scenes of wars and revolutions from the plains of Provence to the slums and boulevards of Paris. Robb conveys with wit and precision what it felt like to look over the shoulder of a young Louis XIV as he planned the vast garden of Versailles, and the dangerous thrill of having a ringside seat at the French revolution. Some of the protagonists may be familiar, but appear here in a very different light—Caesar, Charlemagne, Louis XIV, Napoleon Bonaparte, General Charles de Gaulle.

This extraordinary narrative is the fruit of decades of research and thirty thousand miles on a self-propelled, two-wheeled time machine (a bicycle). Even seasoned Francophiles will wonder if they really know that terra incognita on the edge of Europe that is currently referred to as “France.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781324002567
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	07/05/2022
Pages:	544
Sales rank:	259,607
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 5.70(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Graham Robb is the author of three prize-winning biographies, each selected as New York Times Best Books. His books, including The Discovery of Middle Earth, Parisians, and The Discovery of France, have earned several awards. He lives on the Anglo-Scottish border.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

List of Maps xi

About This Book 1

Previously 5

Part 1 Ancient Gaul to the Renaissance

1 The Hedge 9

2 A Home in Gaul 21

3 The Invisible Land of the Woods and the Sea 41

4 Time Machines 56

5 Cathar Treasure 75

6 The Tree at the Centre of France 95

Part 2 Louis XIV to the Second Empire

7 A Walk in the Garden 119

8 Stained Glass 143

9 Bloody Provence 159

10 How He Did It 183

11 The Murder of Madame Bovary 208

12 Miss Howard's Gift to France 236

Part 3 The Third, Fourth and Fifth Republics

13 Savage Coast 265

14 Keeping Track of the Dead 284

15 Mount Inaccessible 305

16 Martyrs of the Tour de France 331

17 La République en Marche! 351

18 Demolition 373

Notes for Travellers 397

Maps 402

Chronology 418

References 435

General Index 485

Geographical Index 507

Acknowledgements 529

Editorial Reviews

"Robb here challenges the idea of a lone scholar holed up in a vast library by approaching his subject from the seat of a bicycle. This unique view, and Robb's penetrating eye, offer close-up looks at settings most of us know only from photographs or maps.... Refreshing as well as deeply researched."

Booklist (starred review)

"[A] rich and vibrant narrative that ranges from the Gauls to the gilets jaunes...His clear-eyed but imaginative storytelling scrutinises the more idiosyncratic features of France’s historical landscape."

Financial Times - Lucy Wadham

"Mr. Robb’s own collaborations with the land have yielded another champion performance."

Wall Street Journal - Boyd Tonkin

05/06/2022

In his latest work of pop history, New York Times—Best Booked Robb (The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War) approaches the history of France as a tourist would: there are destinations in mind, a general outline, and an appreciative sense of discovery. The journey begins with the Roman Empire, continues through Versailles, includes Napoleon and his mistress Harriet Howard (whose romance includes all the best elements of a soap opera), then meanders to the Atlantic-coast province of Saintonge. The adventure continues through World War II—which Robb deftly covers, given the wealth of material that exists on the topic—and finally ends with the Tour de France. Through Robb's eyes, readers experience the well-known cycling race as a kind of pilgrimage, where the intersection of historical injury narratives and modern experiences will generate goosebumps. Robb's writing in a chapter titled "The Tree at the Centre of France" captures the book's alchemy best, motivating readers to explore the modern world with clues from the past. The book includes notes for travelers and a historical timeline. VERDICT In this refreshing history, Robb will challenge U.S. readers' assumptions about France by interjecting new discoveries, more diversity, and an aptitude for strong storytelling.—Tina Panik

Library Journal

★ 2022-05-18
Discovering France with a shrewd, deeply knowledgeable guide.

Melding memoir, travelogue, and history, British biographer and cultural historian Robb offers a sweeping, spirited, and refreshingly unsentimental portrait of France, from the Bronze Age to the present. Traveling by bicycle, train, and on foot, the author and his wife ventured all over the country, searching for the nation’s social, political, and geographical past and alert to intimations of its future. Robb brings to his travels a “taste for apparently futile journeys of discovery,” an impressive command of history, and lively curiosity. Promising a book different from the “express train” narratives that rush through centuries focused on major figures and events, the author takes a slow route. His well-populated narrative includes Julius Caesar, Napoleon, and de Gaulle but also Ermoldus Nigellus, a poet with a “cheeky sense of humour” whose chronicles bore witness to ninth-century Brittany; early medieval polymath Gerbert d’Aurillac, who became Archbishop of Reims and, as Sylvester II, the first French pope; Jacques-Louis Ménétra, a free-spirited glazier from Paris whose autobiography painted a ribald picture of 18th-century France; and Louis-Napoleon’s ambitious mistress Harriet Howard. In present-day France, Robb discovered 159 towns with the status of “Plus Beaux Village,” looking like “habitats created by committees.” A topography dominated by roadways features some 50,000 roundabouts. The author examines changes in France’s social and political life as represented by the 2015 attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, burkini bans at the beach, and the 2018 protests of the Gilets Jaunes. Unlike Francophiles who insist that the essence of France will endure forever, Robb sees a future of vast changes—in land, people, language, and spirit. He appends the volume with a detailed chronology as well as acerbic notes for travelers who may want to emulate his explorations without being killed on their bicycles.

Delightful, discerning, and charmingly irreverent.

Kirkus Reviews

"[A] quirky, amused, erudite homage to the French people."

The Times (UK) - Ruth Scurr

Graham Robb cycles his way through French history from the Gauls to Charlie Hebdo in these unconnected historical essays. Narrator Tom Lawrence has his work cut out for him with all the French names and terms and dense details that don’t always have a clear context. Lawrence has a lovely English accent, an attractive lilt, and good energy. But sometimes he sounds a bit too pleasant, and you find yourself in the middle of terrible genocide without quite knowing how you got there. Most fascinating are Robb’s obscure tangents—the tree in the middle of the country, villagers out for violence as the Tour de France peloton passes by, or present-day protests against roundabouts—and Lawrence really hits his storytelling stride in these moments. A.B. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2023 - AudioFile

Graham Robb cycles his way through French history from the Gauls to Charlie Hebdo in these unconnected historical essays. Narrator Tom Lawrence has his work cut out for him with all the French names and terms and dense details that don’t always have a clear context. Lawrence has a lovely English accent, an attractive lilt, and good energy. But sometimes he sounds a bit too pleasant, and you find yourself in the middle of terrible genocide without quite knowing how you got there. Most fascinating are Robb’s obscure tangents—the tree in the middle of the country, villagers out for violence as the Tour de France peloton passes by, or present-day protests against roundabouts—and Lawrence really hits his storytelling stride in these moments. A.B. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2023 - AudioFile