The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography, from the Revolution to the First World War
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$27.95
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Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 944
EAN: 9780393059731
ISBN: 0393059731
Label: W. W. Norton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: 2007-10-29
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Studio: W. W. Norton
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Editorial Reviews:
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A narrative of exploration—full of strange landscapes and even stranger inhabitants—that explains the enduring fascination of France.
While Gustave Eiffel was changing the skyline of Paris, large parts of France were still terra incognita. Even in the age of railways and newspapers, France was a land of ancient tribal divisions, prehistoric communication networks, and pre-Christian beliefs. French itself was a minority language.
Graham Robb describes that unknown world in arresting narrative detail. He recounts the epic journeys of mapmakers, scientists, soldiers, administrators, and intrepid tourists, of itinerant workers, pilgrims, and herdsmen with their millions of migratory domestic animals. We learn how France was explored, charted, and colonized, and how the imperial influence of Paris was gradually extended throughout a kingdom of isolated towns and villages.
The Discovery of France explains how the modern nation came to be and how poorly understood that nation still is today. Above all, it shows how much of France—past and present—remains to be discovered. 8 pages of color and 8 pages of black-and-white illustrations.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Not to be missed
Comment: Every page of this book yields unexpected and brilliant insights and sidelights into the motley collection of nationalities, languages, and races that somehow became France. The story of Bernadette of Lourdes. The creation of the "official" meter. The persecution of a particular group for a thousand years (and no, it wasn't the Jews). Add to this a smooth and witty prose style and you have a book that shouldn't be missed. It's one of those rare books about which, as Holden Caulfield would say, you feel like calling up the author after reading it.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: it's a ramble
Comment: Robb has generated a book which taught me much about a place I know little--France beyond Paris. The book seems a compilation of provincial lore and wisdom accumulated over several years' of bicycle travel through this country of peoples. It was generally enjoyable, but like a long uphill climb, was tiring in places. I often enjoy books in this genre, but I found this one occasionally lacking. I still recommend it, for it will open most readers' eyes to new notions, and the author is competent. I most enjoyed the section describing Cassini's mapping of France.
My lack of enthusiasm may be because I did not find the book to be tightly structured, and I sometimes found myself wanting a crisper roadmap for the direction of the text. I also wanted a better roadmap of France in the illustrations, as the many localities described had me turning to my own atlas much of the time. The major theses of the book are lightly woven into the text. One mildly recurring theme is a whiff of anti-clericism. At one point the author suggested the Church had more to fear from latent paganism than the revolutionaries of 1789; I suspect the thousands of clergy who were massacred by the Republicans after seeing their churches destroyed and properties taken might come to a different conclusion.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Comment: France is more than just Paris! There seems to be little written on life in provincial France and the author has certainly filled that void with this book. Who would have thought that life in rural France was so backward compared to not only Paris, but rural life in other European countries? Peasants at this time prayed to stone fertility statues, believed in werewolves and witches and were very ignorant of life outside of their little village--and most didn't even speak French.
This book is chock full of the history of cartographers, early travelers as well as daily life and thought.
There was a France long before there were the French.
If you're interested in French history, this is a must read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: What Cultural Anthropology Should Be
Comment: Robb has done more than a yeoman's job in producing this book. It's not that difficult to write a book like this to be informative, but it is hard to write one that is pleasant to read. Robb has spun out a great many anecdotes while making the information not only plausible but entertaining.
My only regret is that he spent so much time researching a 'People' who probably will never appreciate what he has done.
Like the stereotypical French Cafe Waiter (never snap your fingers and yell Garcon); the French will probably turn up their collective noses at the thought that anyone but a "true" frenchman (i.e. a Parisian) could 'know' much less write about La Belle France. Most Parisians still look at their countrymen outside of 'Le Capital' as country bumpkins and half literate imbeciles who marry their first cousins.
In parts of the book (like the stories of the Cassini's I->IV), Robb mentions that there is little information about such and such. Here's hoping that he continues to write about these 'little known' areas and people so that the rest of us can be entertained while opening our eyes to more 'hidden history'. Thank you M.Robb.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Insightful and eminently readable
Comment: I will not repeat the praises of the preceding reviewers with which I fully agree. This I must say: with Graham Robb I'm absorbing rather than reading. Like his Victor Hugo's biography, this book is a smooth flow of information that pumps one full. I feel satiated and richer in knowledge.
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