THE COURSE OF FRENCH HISTORY

by Pierre Goubert ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 4, 1987

A brisk overview of French history by the author of Louis XIV and Twenty Million Frenchmen (1970) and The Ancien RÉgime (1973). Documentary and narrative rather than theoretical and polemic, this quasi-novelistic epic encompasses a thousand years, from the first Capetians in 987, and highlights successive revolts at home from 1789 to 1968, and political and military dramas abroad ranging from The Hundred Years' War to the Pyrrhic victory of 1914 and the Vichy legacy. Though Goubert has a tendency to worship the chart or graph and make an oracle of the archive, there are nonethÉless vivid sketches of legendary historical figures such as Joan of Arc, (Saint) Louis XI, Louis XIV, and Charles de Gaulle, supported by a cast of characters including Lafayette, Talleyrand, and the perpetual proletariat of French Revolution, the Paris student body. Goubert's popularizing survey seems unlikely to prove the definitive one-volume work. Even given tolerance of his vision of history as primarily economic and political, his suspicion of ""intellotrends,"" and the book's tone of a Sorbonne primer, it's hard to swallow a history of France in which Balzac and Chopin are merely so much gossip and background music to the July Monarchy, and Racine a poetic footnote to the Grand Siècle.

Pub Date: Jan. 4, 1987

ISBN: 0415066719

Page Count: -

Publisher: Watts

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1987

Categories: NONFICTION