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| The Discovery of France | 
 enlarge | Author: Graham Robb
Publisher: Picador
Category: Book
List Price: £18.99
Buy Used: £6.10
You Save: £12.89 (68%)
New (4) from £6.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 11906
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 474
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6 x 1.7
ISBN: 0330427601
EAN: 9780330427609
ASIN: 0330427601
Publication Date: September 7, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-8 of 8 | | « PREV | | |
 France Profonde November 18, 2007
26 out of 27 found this review helpful
This book allows you to discover a completely unexpected glimpse of a forgotten and hidden France. Some of the photographs will stop you dead in your tracks. Instead of the uniform, smooth running and modern France we see today Robb takes you into a world of a France that was scarcely known even to its own government. Using the detail from his research he describes the harshness and poverty of the French existence in rural areas and gives a sense of the isolation and boredom of life as well as the great migrations to find work such as the masons of the Limousin. Forgotten trades are explained, forgotten languages resurrected. This book is a must read to help you understand why France is like it is today.
A must October 27, 2007
14 out of 17 found this review helpful
Frankly this is one of the best books I have read in a long time - and I have read a few.
It describes a French reality that is in contrast to official French history that, to anyone living here, is so contrived.
The way of life of the past french population is not only realistic and remarkeable but, for a student of British history, gives a pointer to how many of our ancestors must have lived. This is not about Kings and aristocrats but of ordinary people (and their animals!).
A very good and revealing effort September 26, 2007
68 out of 71 found this review helpful
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, Provencal, 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 velo-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 inedit that strips away the republican myths to show us a nation infinitely more complicated than we imagined.
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