France An adventure history

Historian and literary biographer Robb (The Discovery of France, 2007; The Debatable Land, 2018) 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. Robb commences his history with Caesar in Gaul, covering in detail domestic scenes in the Auvergne and filling in the gaps leading up to Charlemagne. He parses theological controversies in the Christianization of the Franks and moves on to rivalries between Franks and Celts. The transformation of ancient forests to arable land seems much more ominous in the present era of climate change. The Bourbons' rise and fall are stripped of the clichés fostered in over-imaginative novels. On the other hand, Robb finds much history reflected in Flaubert's Madame Bovary. Robb's descriptive powers come to the fore in his vivid accounts of the military battles of the two world wars. As a cyclist, Robb cannot resist ruminating on the renowned Tour de France. French history students will find Robb's perspectives refreshing as well as deeply researched.

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. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.