The Discovery of France

A Historical Geography

By: Graham Robb

Narrated by: Derek Perkins

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

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.

©2007 Graham Robb (P)2020 Tantor

Very interesting but…

While I quite recommend the book, I’ll also advise to take everything with a grain of salt. On more recent topics where I can judge, the author is very ideologically oriented, caricatural and arguably factually wrong. Which leaves me unsure of whether to trust the rest.

Anything Graham Robb writes is gold

Graham Robb brings France into a perspective like none other, couldn't stop listening. His depth of research and skill with storytelling keeps you engaged while bringing the reader history, economics, politics, anthropology in combination and nuance with new ways to see the past that always make you think vs. writing with an obvious bias.

Read and Listened to So Many Times

I bought this award winning book in 2007 and I've treasured it ever since. This book is mostly a history of village life from around 1700 to 1900 in almost every locale in France. It uses a relaxed, conversational style. It gave me things to think about that otherwise would have never occurred to me even though I've visited many areas in France. The author spent four years researching archives in localities around France. The facts he presents are descriptions of village life that come from letters and reports by government administrators, travelers, and priests and, where possible, records from the villagers too. The book notes that Victor Hugo also wrote of the rural, rustic life he had seen as the child of an itinerant military officer. I experienced the book as not just a history of France but a revelation of how life was everywhere in the preliterate world. Every page presents jaw-dropping facts.

Fascinating History of France Warts and All

Fascinating history of France, the good and the bad. How the country became the wonderful beautiful place it is now. Also how the people became one from many different cultures.

A collage of France.

This is a very different sort of book, full of description of the variety inherent in France, with a particular focus on the changes during the 19th and 19th centuries, when France congealed into a nation. A great book to read before going there.