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'Robb is a compellingly and hugely knowledgeable guide to a country that we only thought we knew.' --London Review of Books

Sunday Times 100 best holiday reads

'Superlative history of la France profonde'

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First Sentence
ONE SUMMER IN THE EARLY 1740s, on the last day of his life, a young man from Paris became the first modern cartographer to see the mountain called Le Gerbier de Jonc. Read the first page

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Customer Reviews

29 Reviews

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4.7 out of 5 stars (29 customer reviews)

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31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Discover the real France, 1 Feb 2008

By	Ian David Curry "Legal Eagle" (London, UK) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Discovery of France (Hardcover)

Graham Robb is a serious scholar. He has written books on Balzac, Rimbaud, Victor Hugo and Baudelaire. This list also suggests another academic and personal passion - France. He earned a PhD in French literature at Vanderbilt University after his degree in modern languages at Oxford, and has since excelled as a writer. This is a rare fusion of scholarly research and revelatory fact, written in an accessible but highly literate and engaging style.

The book is quite difficult to pigeonhole. It is at times a travel book, based on Robb's own personal experience of cycling around France and getting a feel for the immensity of what the pre-industrial nation would have been. It is also an anthropological study of the French, and the development of the nation through history. In fact the central thesis, that the idea of a French nation is a purely modern conceit, occupies much of the book. Robb then sets out to describe what the modern republic replaced. The migrations of peoples, the intricate network of towns, villages and regions, the Babel tongued array of languages and dialects, the cast of untouchables and the tenuous attachment to Paris and royal control.

It is a biography of the French people, an erudite, if potted, ramble through folklore, local history, linguistics and sociology. Perhaps most startling is that the book manages to amaze on every page with facts that even those conversant with French history would be intrigued with. This is a history of the ordinary people, of the rhythms and nature of everyday life. It is an account of a nation held together by the loosest of binds, where the Paris elite could barely travel and expect to be understood outside the Ile de France.

This is at the heart of the book. Robb considers that the bulk of history written on France starts from the central conceit that Paris, king and court were somehow representative or integral to the rest of France. He demonstrates this falsehood with startling stories, from the existence and experience of an outcast group, the Cagot to the original `tour de France', conducted on foot by the apprentice bands of craftsmen and covering the vast internal migrations of workers, the daily grind and difficulty of peasant life, and the experience of those `explorers' who ventured into this misunderstood hinterland, are revealed in a delicious and gripping text.

If I was to be glib I could say this was a Bill Bryson for the literary set, but this would diminish both Robb and Bryson's work. It is a unique and fascinating ramble through French history, with a strong central argument that modern France, and with it the modern French, are a singularly modern creation. This was built over the rich and intricate patchwork of local and regional identities, which, Robb manages to argue with an erudite conviction, were far more interesting and noteworthy entities.

Robb won the 1997 Whitbread Book Award for best biography with Victor Hugo and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Rimbaud in 2001. I expect this book to win even greater praise. This was easily my non-fiction book recommendation of the year for 2007, and is a book I will return to. It was revelatory, lucid and vivid. Anyone with an interest in France, or in history, will be well served by getting this book as soon as possible.

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110 of 114 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Discover the real France, 30 Jul 2008

By	Ian David Curry "Legal Eagle" (London, UK) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

Graham Robb is a serious scholar. He has written books on Balzac, Rimbaud, Victor Hugo and Baudelaire. This list also suggests another academic and personal passion - France. He earned a PhD in French literature at Vanderbilt University after his degree in modern languages at Oxford, and has since excelled as a writer. This is a rare fusion of scholarly research and revelatory fact, written in an accessible but highly literate and engaging style.

The book is quite difficult to pigeonhole. It is at times a travel book, based on Robb's own personal experience of cycling around France and getting a feel for the immensity of what the pre-industrial nation would have been. It is also an anthropological study of the French, and the development of the nation through history. In fact the central thesis, that the idea of a French nation is a purely modern conceit, occupies much of the book. Robb then sets out to describe what the modern republic replaced. The migrations of peoples, the intricate network of towns, villages and regions, the Babel tongued array of languages and dialects, the cast of untouchables and the tenuous attachment to Paris and royal control.

It is a biography of the French people, an erudite, if potted, ramble through folklore, local history, linguistics and sociology. Perhaps most startling is that the book manages to amaze on every page with facts that even those conversant with French history would be intrigued with. This is a history of the ordinary people, of the rhythms and nature of everyday life. It is an account of a nation held together by the loosest of binds, where the Paris elite could barely travel and expect to be understood outside the Ile de France.

This is at the heart of the book. Robb considers that the bulk of history written on France starts from the central conceit that Paris, king and court were somehow representative or integral to the rest of France. He demonstrates this falsehood with startling stories, from the existence and experience of an outcast group, the Cagot to the original `tour de France', conducted on foot by the apprentice bands of craftsmen and covering the vast internal migrations of workers, the daily grind and difficulty of peasant life, and the experience of those `explorers' who ventured into this misunderstood hinterland, are revealed in a delicious and gripping text.

If I was to be glib I could say this was a Bill Bryson for the literary set, but this would diminish both Robb and Bryson's work. It is a unique and fascinating ramble through French history, with a strong central argument that modern France, and with it the modern French, are a singularly modern creation. This was built over the rich and intricate patchwork of local and regional identities, which, Robb manages to argue with an erudite conviction, were far more interesting and noteworthy entities.

Robb won the 1997 Whitbread Book Award for best biography with Victor Hugo and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Rimbaud in 2001. I expect this book to win even greater praise. This was easily my non-fiction book recommendation of the year for 2007, and is a book I will return to. It was revelatory, lucid and vivid. Anyone with an interest in France, or in history, will be well served by getting this book as soon as possible.

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72 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good and revealing effort, 26 Sep 2007

By	Jonathan Miller (H�rault, France) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Discovery of France (Hardcover)

Less a history, more a biography, informed by Robb's extraordinary on-the-ground research in which he uncovers the folkloric history of a country that is widely misunderstood. Robb peers into the soul of his subject with the background of literary biographer, and is not just entertaining but learned. Robb reveals that contemporary regional identities (Catalan, Breton, Proven�al, etc.) that some suggest take France back to its past are actually imagined. Robb reveals the roots to be less regional than minutely local. As late as the 19th century, Frenchmen outside the mushroom of Paris could barely communicate with one another. Robb is a cyclist and has benefited from a v�lo-eye view. He offers a sharp eye and an original analysis. This is a book that amazes on every page. Even if you have read widely on France, I rate Robb a must. This is a France in�dit that strips away the republican myths to show us a nation infinitely more complicated than we imagined.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading for Francophiles
The clumsy illustrated cover for this unusual book does not even begin to suggest the quality of the writing within. Read more

Published 14 days ago by Glenn-emlyn Richards

5.0 out of 5 stars Sheer brilliance
This is an excellent, fascinating-fact-packed, unputdownable read. The cover reviewer who says you'll be annoying friends and family by constantly reading bits out to them is... Read more

Published 1 month ago by Greville Fane

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating France
I read this book because I was moving to live in France and I wanted to understand something of the history of the country in an accessible format. Read more

Published 3 months ago by Random Reader

5.0 out of 5 stars Surprise on every page
The history of France is revealed to be much more different from that of my own country (UK) than I ever imagined: it had no common language and no maps before the 19th century,... Read more

Published 3 months ago by R. Few

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous Book
This is an absolute must read for any one interested in the real France,a very well written book full of the most fascinating facts. Read more

Published 3 months ago by Christine Marryat

5.0 out of 5 stars For your eyes only
This book is everything you expect from the title of the book.

If you have eyes which are beginning to fail, the larger hard back version is easier to read. Read more

Published 4 months ago by Lynda Perry

5.0 out of 5 stars Why no French edition
Having thoroughly enjoyed this fascinating book which is brimming over with unforgettable facts (such as the fact that in the eighteenth century when France was arguably the most... Read more

Published 5 months ago by Telletubby

5.0 out of 5 stars France, but not as you know it
Graham Robb's book is crammed with incredibly surprising facts about the French nation.

It is best non-fiction book on the French State, its people and history that I... Read more

Published 5 months ago by Jerrold Baldwin

5.0 out of 5 stars Astoundingly good
This is one of the best books I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Gripping, simply and engagingly written, and with revelations on almost every page, I had to ration myself... Read more

Published 6 months ago by Antonin Artaud

4.0 out of 5 stars The Discovery of France
On the whole a very informative and interesting book. One into which it is easy to dip without necessarily reading from cover to cover. Read more

Published 6 months ago by Paulli Taylor-Lewis

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	86% buy the item featured on this page: The Discovery of France 4.7 out of 5 stars (29) �5.97
	6% buy Pardon My French: Unleash Your Inner Gaul 4.3 out of 5 stars (23) �5.74
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