FRANCE AGAINST HERSELF

A fascinating dissection of a country by a Swiss political commentator and historian, this views the ""eternal"" France in contrast to the contemporary, everyday reality and, with a precis of its past, identifies and inventories the characteristics, alive or ossified, that survive today. From the national structure, to the Third Republic, to colonial France, and up to 1953, he weighs and measures, analyzes and investigates the moral and material tests; he reviews the nationalism which is the ""disease of a nation which is in search of- or has already -- lost her self""; he traces the convulsions and storm upon storm which have beset the people; he follows the path of decay and brooding decline of the postwar years; and in an epilogue sums up the more recent events of a more optimistic atmosphere. This is a good choice for the serious readers of contemporary history and international affairs, and the translation by Eric Mosbacher reflects the arresting turn of phrase and idea of the original, which loses none of the stimulating qualities acclaimed abroad.