FRANCE is an entertaining, though demanding, history of France, from the first-century BC to the present day. What he has done in this informative and hugely entertaining book is to interest himself in an generally unknown area, open it up and relate it to the broader history of France. I learned new facts that I had not known -- such as it was women who led the French Revolution and learned about architecture, trees, and round-abouts and bicycle routes! Robb moves forward to a sheepherder prodigy from Aurillac named Gerbert, who later became Pope in 999 after spending many years in Reims. Having met Graham Robb and read several of his books, I was VERY DISAPPOINTED to find that this edition, bought by my wife as a gift for my birthday in August has NO MAPS OR DIAGRAMS included.

For a great read, I would make one critique: I would have liked to have read a bit more about French cultural history. I definitely will read his other book "The Discovery of France" which covers the French Revolution to World War I. Frequently hilarious, always surprising, this is a a vivid, living history of one of the world’s most fascinating nations, it will make even seasoned Francophiles wonder if they really know that terra incognita which is currently referred to as ‘France’. It’s not a survey; it plunges down into the lives of people to give immediacy to the moments and movements of France’s storied past and changing present. I’m far from being a Francophile, but if a book is written well enough you can be converted to almost anything…at least for the duration of the read.A charmingly quirky and meandering exploration of two thousand years of French history anchored in its geography.

I know because one November day long ago I was piecing together a long-distance footpath through the mountains and almost literally stumbled upon it. The land will always predominate: it shrugs at the presence of such pretenders as language (although language is doing a pretty good job of warming the seas these days).Of all the essays in the book, this one felt most worthy of the adventure descriptor from the title. This is a fairly ambitious book, covering a huge amount of time in an attempt to give an impression of the whole history of France as a nation.