French [Paperback]

Theodore Zeldin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 16, 1997

This is a guide to France intended for the traveller who wants to get to know French people as individuals, for the negotiating businessman and for students who wishes to discover in-depth aspects of their lives. It looks at what makes up the national character of France.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

There are a zillion guides to France jostling for position on travel shelves, but none gives more than a cursory Gallic nod to the people some people love to hate--the French themselves. Theodore Zeldin, an Englishman with great insight into his neighbors across the channel, has written the ultimate guide to the French, including how to laugh at their jokes, when to look solemn, how to appreciate French grandmothers, and how not to be intimidated by their intellectuals. It's a sympathetic, funny, serious, richly readable, charming book that hits the spot and fills a need. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"The best expert on France is British citizen. His name is Theodore Zeldin."-Les Nouvelles d'Orl�ans

"Everything is fascinating in this enquiry by an Englishman who knows us better than we know ourselves."-Livres de France

"Highly intelligent, observant, perceptive, humorous, and sympathetic."-The Spectator

"[This] highly readable...book topples one Gallic Stereotype after another....Centuries of inaccurate assumptions melt away."-Newsweek

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 542 pages
• Publisher: Panther (January 16, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1860460755
• ISBN-13: 978-1860460753
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1.3 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,657,659 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good foundation, November 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The French (Kodansha Globe) (Paperback)

I bought this book, hoping to get up-to-date information on French culture and society. Although I enjoyed the book and found it very informative from a historical perspective, I was dissappointed that much of the quoted information and statistics derive from studies and interviews done as long ago as 1973, most from the 1970's in general, and nothing after 1982. Since I was a student in France in 1982, it is interesting to look back on my experiences in view of what I have read in this book. But if you want to know anything about current trends in French popular culture, or more recent studies, statistics, and [attitude revealing] interviews with French individuals, you will not find it in this book.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Englishman gives lessons on how to be French, June 24, 1998

By 

Ramona M. White "Poet/Songwriter" (Rainy Southwest Washington) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The French (Kodansha Globe) (Paperback)

I bought this book at Shakespeare & Co. in Paris before there was an Amazon.com to offer it at such an excellent price. Still I feel I got my money's worth. It is true the essays in this book rely a lot on the opinions of the author but Theodore Zeldin has supplemented them with interviews, cartoons, charts, and footnotes which leave the reader feeling he has stumbled upon a textbook of the highest order. Whether you are wondering about French humor (what's with that Jerry Lewis thing) or which blood types are the most common the information is here. Save yourself a lot of money, buy the book here and enjoy.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The French Observer..., May 16, 2011

By 

John P. Jones III (Albuquerque, NM, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The French, The (Paperback)

Theodore Zeldin was born in the British mandate of Palestine in 1933. He is a sociologist and historian, perhaps most famous for his iconic, and idiosyncratic Intimate History of Humanity, An which I have previously reviewed. Though purportedly about all of humanity, that book is heavily weighted towards the French experience, which is perhaps a natural consequence of his "observer" role of the French people from just across the channel. He has also written a four volume "History of French Passions," and I have regrettably only read the last, A History of French Passions: Volume 4 - Taste and Corruption But if I were to recommend only one book on France, to the foreign visitor, or even to the French themselves, who can appreciate an outsider's view, it would be this one. Throw away the guide books: SEE the people, and not the heaps of stones that prior generations have left. This is the first point that Zeldin makes, in his chapter entitled "How to avoid seeing the sights." He discusses what a fellow Englishman, Sir Francis Head, did in Paris in 1852, prior to having "guide books." "... he visited the municipal pawnshops, the asylum for blind youths, where Braille, still unknown in England, was being used, a prison, an orphanage for abandoned children, the Salpetriere old people's home, the morgue, the national printing works... the public laundry"... and on and on. Can we duplicate that today? Not quite, for as Zeldin says: "The rise of bureaucratic officialdom soon stopped that kind of curiosity" As indeed it has, but the enterprising visitor might be able to replicate half of that, and have far more memorable experiences than playing monument tag as the guide books would advocate.

All Zeldin's chapter heading start with "how," "what," "where," or "why." He is not a "niche" player; virtually any aspect of the human condition can interest him. Sample headings include: "What lovers want from each other," "How small shopkeepers survive," "How not to be intimidated by their intellectuals," and "What becomes of the drop-outs." In his meandering style there are many unique observations provided by a fresh perspective. For example, he cites an opinion poll taken in 1961, asking American women to name their ideal man. Three Americans were named, along with the actor Yves Montand, of Z: The Criterion Collection fame, and much else. There is a telling portrait of Montand's poor upbringing in Marseille. Zeldin also provides the background and operating philosophy of my favorite French newspaper, "Liberation." Alas, I suspect it has been hammered by "economic forces" since this description. He notes that "The unification of France was achieved in the nineteenth century, at the beginning of which something like a quarter of the inhabitants spoke no French at all and another quarter were virtually incapable of conducting a continuous conversation in it" This is a subject covered in greater detail in the excellent The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography.

In terms of the elites, Zeldin identifies the "filter": "Math has replaced Latin as the instrument for selecting the elite, the prestige of this elite can be judged by the fact that an unusually large number of people are called scientists and engineers..." On immigration, the author notes: "France has something else in common with the America of the nineteenth century, where prosperity was, of course, originally partly built on slavery." Quoting from "Le Monde,": "My thesis is that the immigrant workers are a new sort of slaves."

There are numerous editions of this work; mine is dated from 1995, published by Harvill Press in London. It contains a number of incisive cartoons illustrating points about French life. It is over 500 pages, but I never wanted it to end. Zeldin's anecdotal approach to French life is brilliant, and his erudition shines through. Keep the "let's look at the stones" guidebooks at the bottom of the pile. This one should be your daily travel companion. 5-stars plus.