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.
Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.
© PrimmLife.com 2022
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.
From the Publisher
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.”
Review - France: An Adventure History by Graham Robb
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.
© PrimmLife.com 2022