The Cambridge Illustrated History of France (Cambridge Illustrated Histories)

The man who wrote this deserves a medal. So much subtle detail illustrating the points he makes and the text never becomes tedious.Learned something new every page I turned. France - a complex and fascinating country, perhaps less civilised today than it once was!

Wonderful quality book. No evidence that anyone had ever read it.

Well pleased with this fine addition to history section of home library!Thank you seller.Kind regards.Harry Donaghy.

Bit heavy to hold

Perfect. Thanks!

The Cambridge Illustrated History of France (Cambridge Illustrated Histories)This is an easy to read history, from pre-Roman times to Mitterand. It is written in the modern style, as for example Norman Davies and Tim Blanning. It is a bit sparse on detail of the era from Clovis to the Capetians, but this may not matter too much in the overall history of the development of the French nation. Otherwise it is an excellent book for the amateur historian interested in understanding how France became what it is and makes it clear that, like England, it is not a homogeneous people or culture.

I bought this book on the basis of the reviews, and I think I was misled. In my view, it is badly written (or badly edited) and with a usage of English that is either just wrong ("acclimatisation" instead of "assimilation" for example) or difficult to understand (what does "...its biggest conurbations - Narbonne, Nîmes, Lyon, Autun, Reims and Trier - did not exceed the 20,000 to 30,000 population band" actually mean?). I haven't read any other histories of France, so I can't advise you to buy something else and be certain that my advice will lead you to buy a better book, but on the other hand, surely there has to be something better than this out there.

Entertaining and informative. The narrative could be clearer if family trees and boxes containing dates were inserted within the text. Sometimes terms like 'Fronde' were difficult to understand from the text and sometimes prior knowledge was assumed. However, I did enjoy reading this.