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The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography Paperback – October 17, 2008

by Graham Robb (Author)

151 customer reviews

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"A witty, engaging narrative style…[Robb's] approach is particularly engrossing." ―New York Times Book Review

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.

A New York Times Notable Book, Publishers Weekly Best Book, Slate Best Book, and Booklist Editor's Choice.

16 pages of illustrations

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Brilliant. Robb, who writes beautifully…has accomplished quite a feat. He has reintroduced France to itself.”
- William Grimes, New York Times

“Scintillating and resourceful.”
- Harper's

About the Author

Best-selling author Graham Robb was born in Manchester in 1958 and is a former Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. He is an acclaimed historian and biographer, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He has won the Whitbread Biography Prize and the Heinemann Award for Victor Hugo, as well as the Ondaatje Prize and Duff Cooper Prize for The Discovery of France. His book Parisians was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller. He lives on the Anglo-Scottish border.

Product details

Paperback: 496 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 9/17/08 edition (October 17, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393333647
ISBN-13: 978-0393333640
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.3 x 8.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 151 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #419,695 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #233 in Books > History > Historical Study & Educational Resources > Historical Geography
- #786 in Books > Science & Math > Earth Sciences > Geography
- #1154 in Books > History > Europe > France

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Don't Let The Boring Title Dissuade You

February 17, 2014

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

As someone whose affinity for France lies far south of Paris, I was hoping that this book would give me something that seemed impossible to find anywhere else: A sense of the rest of France. My high hopes, which usually get dashed, were met ten times over. This is a brilliant work that truly captures just how remote and - yes, I'll say it - primitive much of France was right through to the end of World War I. It captures those corners of sociological history that puts the rest of French history into context (such as why during the French Revolution there was such a huge murderous backlash against the clergy ... the answer is that most of the nation still believed in local spirits and not Christian deities).

The book is beautifully written, instantly grabbing, and most of the time a real page-turner. It does a brilliant job of identifying the demarcation lines between ancient cultures, subcultures, and sub-subcultures through the fissures of French geography. And it makes one think about one's own cultural history, and the impact of roads and communications in unifying a nation into a single culture, as well as what gets lost along the way in that ruthless homogenization.

I can't wait to take this book with me back to the southern parts of France and re-reading it in context. It's just that good.

29 people found this helpful

Comment

Fascinating compendium of an unknown France

July 4, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Robb goes deeply into the smallest corners of France, logging many hours on his bike as well as many hours in libraries and local sources of information. Overall, a story of the mapping of the country of France, this dense account describes how diverse were the cultures and tribes within France. Until World War I, many French citizens did not speak French! Rather they spoke widely divergent local dialects, only using the language of Paris for official government business (very much as the Chinese use Mandarin as a second language to their own local dialects today). Robb is a professor and scholar of French literature and history, so this volume is thoroughly sourced, annotated, and indexed. Subjects examined include the development of roads and railways, the beliefs and superstitions of the French--including fairies and local spirits interwoven with Catholic saints and miracles, the Tour de France originally a route for medieval "journeymen" as they developed their trades and crafts, the "...toothless, stunted peasants of the 'Chestnut Belt'..." contrasted with the beautiful paintings of peasants by Jules Breton, the treatment of unwanted children put out to die in various ways, the custom of human hibernation in winter, a class of peasant called "cagots" who had no distinguishing features yet were outcasts forced to live apart and subject to cruel discrimination, the huge vacant deserts within the country, peddlers and pilgrims roaming the countryside, river travel and commerce, development of silk and porcelain and tapestry industries, and tourist trade and spas... More like an almanac, 358 pages of remote facts that reveal a portrait of a nation unlike any I have ever read before. An excellent reference for Francophiles.

5 people found this helpful

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A tour through time, not just France

July 18, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This book combines history, map-making and exploration, linguistics, and ethnography with a real story-teller's flair. History was never as neat as we tend to think; it's grubby, filled with discomforts, and very strange (and more often than not, hostile) people. Reading this book gives you an armchair tour of centuries of migration and rural life in Gaul without the fleas, mud, or hunger. I couldn't put it down.

4 people found this helpful

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Jacquelyn Goudeau

This book, in just a few days has given ...

July 21, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This book, in just a few days has given me answers I was searching for...Human beings are evolutionary and this book gives some of the European history...if the history of our African beginnings. That being said, I have out the library copy, after hearing Rick Steves and Graham Robb on a Sunday morning talk show.
I have just bought a copy on Amazon, because I want to be able to write in my personal copy.
A question I held for so long about how humans in America could do what they did to so called human African Slaves.? This is not new history. "You have to be carefully taught".
Why are the Parisians today so afraid of communities? depends on what it took to unite all the tribes to form FRANCE.
So,thanks to Rick Steves and Graham Robb and Amazon....
You have all been a blessing to me this week,
Merci, Jacquelyn Goudeau

One person found this helpful

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Previously I read his book The Discovery of Middle Earth describing the ancient Gaullic road systems-- --- both were clearly wri

August 6, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This book combines the authors obvious passion for both geography and history. I read it almost non stop - now I only want to go to France and spend a few months or so walking leisurely between some of the villages and landscapes noted by the author. Previously I read his book The Discovery of Middle Earth describing the ancient Gaullic road systems-- --- both were clearly written and a pleasure to read while referring to a good map- a sense of wonderment is projected is by the author that I found contagious. - Excellant!

9 people found this helpful

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France like you never knew her

August 31, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

The author cites an 1880 survey that revealed that nearly 80% of the population of France could not communicate fluently in the French. This is not your school book history of the France of Louis XIV, the Revolution, Napoleon, Victor Hugo and Claude Monet - basically, Paris. This is an eye-opening history of the French provinces, which was essentially a foreign country to Parisians. The author takes some senseless swipes at Christianity and the Catholic Church, but that doesn't detract too much from this book overall.

One person found this helpful

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