France and the French: A Modern History |
Buy France and the French: A Modern History here, one of 750 France History books offered for sale at discount prices here in the history books section at R bookshop. There are currently 83012 history books in our history books section, and over 1,000,000 books listed in our book store. We greatly appreciate your patronage at R bookshop and look forward to offering you a large selection of great books at discount prices now and in the future. Thank you for shopping at R Bookshop!
|
You Are Here: Home > History Books > France History > Item 88
|
France and the French: A Modern History
|
by Rod Kedward
Sales Rank: 540009
|
List Price: $24.95
$18.96
At Amazon
on 8-1-2008.
|
|
|
|
Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 736 pages
Published by: Overlook TP February 26, 2007
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 1585678813
ISBN 13 Number: 978-1585678815
Book Dimensions:
8.9 x 6 x 1.8 inches
Weighs: 2 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
France rarely receives good press. Criticized for its haughtiness and breathtaking hypocrisy, France exists, so to speak, in a world of its own. Much of the abuse stems from a lack of understanding, says Kedward, an authority on France during WWII (In Search of the Maquis). He sets out to explain that "elusive, evocative quality" which is Frenchness. This book is not an easy read, but it's an amply rewarding one. The Revolution is alive and well in France, Kedward says, and every decision, every policy, is judged according to its adherence to enlightened republican principles. Conventional political distinctions between right and left are tangential to the ongoing struggle between revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries. Just as abortion and gun-rights politics in America are utterly bewildering to the French, Americans fail to appreciate how the seemingly minor issue of Muslim head scarves in state schools can create an existential crisis of national identity. France, in other words, is less a country than an ideology—and a troubled one at that. Kedward's book may be the best tonic for Franco-American relations since the Statue of Liberty. 33 black and white photos, 5 maps. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Booklist
From one perspective, the last century was unkind to France. The French endured two disastrous world wars, the drain of colonial wars in Vietnam and Algeria, and the subsequent loss of empire and the "grandeur" associated with it. Yet, in a cultural sense, France continued as a dynamic, vibrant civilization, producing literature, philosophical concepts, and cinema, which exerted an influence far beyond its borders. Kedward, author of many works on occupied France and the resistance, writes a superbly researched and comprehensive account of France from the apex of French imperial power to the close of the century as France struggles for influence within the European community of nations. Although this is essentially a narrative history, Kedward does not confine himself to political and military developments, also tackling such varied subjects as immigration, social change, and the ongoing search for a redefined national identity. Those with a basic knowledge of the broad outlines of French history will find this a valuable and often provocative examination. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Reader Reviews
I bought this because of a pair of good reviews, both quoted on the back of my copy, in the Economist and the Guardian. In particular, the Guardian review says "essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand why the survival of the French republic is more than one country's concern". I very specifically wished to understand why I should care about the French republic, but Kedward fails to make me. I assume that he is a Francophile - he has written a 650 page book about the place, and on the evidence of the last section (on the Mitterrand and Chirac era) he has been clipping French newspapers seriously for a large part of his professional life - but he does not manage to communicate much affection. In fact, on most of the post-war occasions here documented where France emerges to engage with the larger world, in what is otherwise a pretty introverted narrative, it is to lose miserable, vicious colonial wars, to set off nuclear bombs, or to cultivate unpleasant African dictators. The problem is with all those clippings: too much information, too little thesis. The reader is confronted with a river of facts, but most of the analysis is at the level of (to be brutally pejorative) the ex-cathedra musings of a Guardian-reading sociologist. Take the section on May 1968. One skeptical view (e.g. Tony Judt, following Raymond Aron) is that May 1968 was a load of narcissism; Kedward though, even after listing the only concrete grievance of the students as lack of access to the girls' dorms, clearly thinks that it was a big and substantive deal, but I couldn't identify why he thinks so. The best I could make out was that I should see it all as a manifestation of the Zeitgeist, but this is implied more than stated, with talk about a post-modern society - however while I more or less know what a post-modern building or painting is, I don't know what a post-modern society is. Here are some questions and issues that I missed: I was expecting a much more differentiated analysis of French politics, especially in the first section. Kedward has little more than a left and a right. He doesn't much like the French right (fair enough - a lot of it isn't, historically, very attractive) but he doesn't provide a feel for the theoretical, or for that matter moral, complexity of political development on the left (c.f. Sheri Berman, for instance). Why is the modern French university system so mediocre (and how much, if at all, does that mediocrity have to do with the lasting effects of 1968)? What is with mobs in the streets as a normal part of politics? Why has France suffered such brutal structural unemployment in the last thirty years or so - Kedward talks a lot about this, but never actually thinks about it, he just treats it as some sort of exogenous given. Why French Anti-Americanism (and its influence on foreign policy)? What about the concerns and dynamics of the bourgeoisie? They are remarkably underrepresented in the discussion, especially in the last section, but as a class they are the core political and cultural player. Why should I care about, admire, or like, France?
Comment | |
(Report this)
Back To Top
|
France and the French: A Modern History
Available from Amazon
Price: $18.96
Updated on 8-1-2008.
|
NOTICE: All prices, availability, and specifications
are subject to verification by their respective retailers.
| We offer France and the French: A Modern History and other related France History Books here at Rbookshop.com. To view more books about France History please use the previous and next buttons near the top of this page.
|
|
Search for books at
