Thank you Netgalley for the e-ARC of this title. I enjoyed reading this title. Would recommend for my library.

This is an unexpected and fun ride through the history of France and through the country of France! The book is divided into key periods in French history as a starting point with intersections of Robb's adventures in that part of the region. I liked that the book is a combination of history, culture and travel adventure. I learned new facts that I had not known -- such as it was women who led the French Revolution and learned about architecture, trees, and round-abouts and bicycle routes! This is definitely a book I will read again when traveling to France. Lots of great information and enjoyable! Thank you to W.W. Norton and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Very very long. Very informative, but it’s definitely a book that’s more suited for a history buff than just a causal French learner or cultural observer.

This book is subtitled "An Adventure History" and that turns out to be perfectly apt. Graham Robb and his wife cycle all over modern France, finding traces of past history, adventures had by people who may now be more myth than reality to us. The best history books tell good stories of individuals, the kind that can be repeated at dinner parties or on podcasts, and this book has plenty of those. Chapter 6, "The Tree at the Centre of France," was my favorite of those stories. However, the forward-looking essays in which Robb takes on difficult subject matter like colonialism's legacies and Islamophobia in modern France are also compelling. This book is not merely an episodic puff piece about the pretty objects and culture richness that were created on French soil. Rather, it tries to get at the deeper history--positive and negative--that can be uncovered from sources (which are often limited), one adventure at a time.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to review a temporary digital ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

Part travelogue and part eclectic episodic history essays that covers certain events from the time of the Roman Empire in France to 2020 (with large gaps in between, a comprehensive time line it is not), this is at times funny, thought-provoking, and gives a flavor of the complex country that is France. And at times it drags too. Some of the essays are stronger than others. Five hundred pages I think is just a little too long for this type of book.

If you don’t like traditional history text or even if you do and just want an unusual take on people or time periods that have been covered thousands of times, this could be the read for you. It is fun and filled with interesting information and may even make you smile or be inspired to take a bike ride. I just wouldn’t try and read it all in one sitting.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest opinion.

TL;DR

France: An Adventure History by Graham Robb belongs on the shelf of any Francophile. This journey through the eras of French history is whimsical, nuanced, and memorable. Highly recommended.

Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.

Review - France: An Adventure History by Graham Robb

During the lockdown phase of Covid, my wife and I replaced our usual date nights – dinner and/or drinks out – with foreign language lessons. We chose French because our family’s heritage can be traced back to France. And because the Alliance Française St. Louis had online lessons. In addition to the language, we began to appreciate the culture, but France’s history wasn’t in our study plans. Other than Napoleon, the French Revolution, and Vichy France, I didn’t know much of anything about France’s history. When I got the opportunity to review Graham Robb’s France: An Adventure History, I was delighted. But I had no idea what was in store for me. Now I plan to seek out Mr. Robb’s other books on France.

Robb divided this history into three parts. The first stretches from ancient Gaul to the Renaissance; next, the second chronicles the time from Louis XIV to the Second Empire; and finally, part three covers the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Republics. Each section contains six essays relating to a specific moment in that history. Whether Julius Caesar staring at a hedge in ancient, northern Gaul or Napoleon Bonaparte’s remains in Rouen or the burkini ban, Robb’s insightful yet humorous approach to France’s history covers a wide array of topics without losing the focus on details. His essays are mostly history mixed with part memoir, part travelogue, and a decent amount of humor. Robb’s reminiscing his own adventures allows the reader some connection to the ancient histories he’s discussing. They’re also a reminder that this – as with all histories – is from a certain point of view.

France: An Adventure History is a non-fiction book that mixes third and first person in each of its essays. Instead of a distant view, coldly relating facts, Robb gets into the details of the people, describing sights, sounds, and smells. (He uses quotes to describe the Étang puant, Stinking Pond, a.k.a. the gardens of Versailles.) While he does cover the major periods of French history, Robb zooms in on certain moments. So, anyone looking for a survey of French history will be disappointed, but someone wishing to know how Caesar would approach the northern Gaul warriors or Michel Frédérick lost the Tour de France will find exquisite essays.

The Quest for a Tree

There are many wonderful essays here. I could probably write a separate review for each of the eighteen pieces in the book, but one essay continues to stand out in my mind. Robb goes in search of a tree that he first saw on a map from 1624, the Carte ecclésiastique. He finds this tree on other maps around that same time period. Underneath the tree, the caption mentions that it marks the boundaries of four adjacent provinces. Robb seeks out the tree in history and in present day. Based on clues he finds, he travels the countryside looking for this tree. Since this isn’t a movie, it’s not as cut and dry as finding the one piece that unlocks the exact location. Robb’s journey is not that of Indiana Jones in the The Last Crusade, but I found it equally as interesting in a wholly different way. This essay mixes his travel with explanation of the local history. We learn why a tree would touch four provinces and be important for a map. He looks for roads that might have been ancient Roman paths or supply routes during the Hundred Years War. He connects the land to its history in a way that made me want to fly to France and see if I could follow his trail.

Of all the essays in the book, this one felt most worthy of the adventure descriptor from the title. It was a realistic adventure. Nazis weren’t chasing him; the fate of the world didn’t depend on him finding the tree; and the hidden wealth of history wasn’t waiting for him in some secret location. Instead, it was a personal adventure. One that mattered to him and, by extension, to us. It was a treasure hunt in reality, but the reward was knowledge.

Ancient or Modern Times

Robb is without a doubt an expert on France and its history. This book, however, doesn’t limit itself to history. It contains a chronicling of modern events as well. There was no drop off in quality between the first and the last essay; each were as good as the last. Yet, the modern essays felt heavier. France’s struggles with terrorism and Islamophobia felt more weighty than the Cathars burying treasure, even though the Cathars were burned at the stake. Maybe this was just me. Maybe it’s just easier for me to connect to the Charlie Hebdo massacre than the Hundred Years War or Louis XIV in Flanders. This did nothing to decrease my enjoyment of the book.

I also read the book from essay one through the end. Could that have an effect? When I read it again – and I will read this book again – I might jump into one of the later essays first. I don’t know, though. I’d love to hear from other readers what they think. Did the later essays affect you in the same way?

Conclusion

Graham Robb’s France: An Adventure History is exactly the kind of history book I want to read. It’s not a survey; it plunges down into the lives of people to give immediacy to the moments and movements of France’s storied past and changing present. France: An Adventure History makes me want to do two things: 1) book a flight to France, and 2) buy all of his other books. France: An Adventure History is a book that belongs on any Francophile’s shelf. Highly recommended.

France: An Adventure History by Graham Robb is available from W.W. Norton & Co. on July 5th, 2022.

This was super informative as a Francophile! Definitely filing away some of this historical knowledge to wow my students during French class!
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc ebook in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

It’s worth saying that the book examines history differently than many other books. Different chapters look at specific areas of France and focus on specific periods of time and on specific people. The advantage of this is that it allows a deep dive into certain aspects of history. On the other hand, the book only discusses that specific time period in that area and not other time periods in the same area. So while the book progresses chronologically, there are huge gaps. I liked the entertaining personal anecdotes which made the book more fun to read. But I found the language much too formal. Overall the book covered certain aspects very well, but suffers from huge gaps in history and the writing was overly complex but is still worthwhile reading. Thank you to Netgalley and W. W. Norton & Company for the digital review copy.

Really enjoyed this fun informative book about French history.It was delightful to read and learn from this well written book.Will be recommending.#netgalley #wwnorton

I have always loved learning and reading about the history of France and I thought this was a fun way to learn the information. The book is action packed with so much information! I would highly recommend if you are wanting to learn about this fascintaing country.

I don't often read history books, but this one grabbed my attention and promised to be entertaining. I was not disappointed! Having no real background in French history, it was a lot of information to digest, but I liked how the author presented stories in an episodic way in each chapter. I walked away knowing so much more about the history of France!

This transports you to France. Robb is a brilliant storyteller that almost tricks you into learning. Love it!

I received a complimentary copy of this book through NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I really liked the tone of this book, although, I'm not really sure how I'd describe it. It definitely bridges the gap between academic work and more popular work, and partly reads like a chronological history and part as a travelogue. There is a lot I learned from these pages that I hadn't ever encountered before, and having read about it through Robb's journeys seemed to make it more relevant. I really found the section on the Inquisitions the most interesting.

For a great read, I would make one critique: I would have liked to have read a bit more about French cultural history. This does a great job looking at the idea of France and how its political identity was shaped, but I think Robb could do justice but a follow up with looking at the pieces of French culture (cuisine, the tour, wine) that make up what it is today.

Graham Robb has bicycled thousands of miles over the decades in what is now France, and in this book, he takes readers along. He begins in ancient Gaul with the tribes that fought against Julius Caesar. The tribes had a network of listening posts and traces of ancient life can still be found on low hilltops near rivers in the topography of the land. Robb moves forward to a sheepherder prodigy from Aurillac named Gerbert, who later became Pope in 999 after spending many years in Reims. He took the name Sylvester II and was scholarly and used ancient Roman and Arabic manuscripts to experiment with. The author discusses the Cathers, describes maps featuring a particular tree, then follows a 1552 guidebook by Charles Estienne, Robb then brings us forward with well-known as well as not well-known people right up until 2020. This is an enjoyable, though serious, ride through the land of France and its history. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is a fairly ambitious book, covering a huge amount of time in an attempt to give an impression of the whole history of France as a nation. Each chapter is a self-contained story, there is not much cohesion in how the history is approached, and there are often huge gaps not covered as the author bounces between topics. Less comprehensive and more episodic, the author has compiled stories surrounding historical events they find of interest, expounding on them as a storyteller might. I was not interested in all of the chapters, but there were many that were very cool and covered interesting topic (my favorite was the one about the tree). I'd classify this as much more of a popular history book, it's readable and the author makes an attempt to be funny and engaging, anyone looking for a more academic approach to the history will be disappointed. Overall, the concept is interesting, and while some chapters were weaker than others, this was an interesting read and a fairly unique take on popular history writing.