France: An Adventure History

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France: An Adventure History is a profoundly original and endlessly entertaining history of France, from the first century BC to the present day, based on countless new discoveries and thirty years of exploring France on foot, by bicycle and in the library. This might (unfortunately) be my legal training; I always look for the point, I skip the meandering. Even with the helpful maps and a massive list of notes and references (which constitute nearly one-third of the hefty book), readers might appreciate the stories more if they have a ready understanding of French history, geography, and language.

I was glad I read this on Kindle, as it allowed me to look up the author’s frequent use of lesser-used English words of Latin and French origin as well as France-specific terms. On the other hand, the book only discusses that specific time period in that area and not other time periods in the same area. 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. From pre Roman Gaul to the present day challenges, tensions and inconsistencies of French society, the journey takes you through the lesser known and often amusing aspects of French history. If you don’t like traditional history text or even if you do and just want an unusual take on people or time periods that have been covered thousands of times, this could be the read for you.What I mean is in each chapter, I couldn't help but feel like freefalling through time itself, seeing swathes of reality and abstractions that manifest themselves in what makes up France, both tangible and intangible. Part travelogue and part eclectic episodic history essays that covers certain events from the time of the Roman Empire in France to 2020 (with large gaps in between, a comprehensive time line it is not), this is at times funny, thought-provoking, and gives a flavor of the complex country that is France. I loved the idea of telling the history of France through a series of places and the places chosen were not the obvious and the history was not always the most well-known. He talks about why the southeast is more violent than other parts of the country; how anti-clericalism existed long before, and after, the Revolution; and why the country’s obsession with Paris’s predominance from the 12th century to the present was in part the result of how much writing about France --- literary, historiographical, legal --- emanated from the City of Light. France: An Adventure History is a non-fiction book that mixes third and first person in each of its essays.

There were many topics I thought would have been covered or explored in more depth, and too many of the digressions were dull or uninteresting. However I found the sections where Robb digressed into personal history a little twee and the endless decriptiosn of cycling and trains were too much.

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.

Ponies at the Edge of the World is a heartfelt love letter to the beauty and resilience of these magical ponies and their native land. In discussing the Cathars, he describes maps that feature a particular tree, then shows all the guidebooks and maps from the 16th century on featuring that tree.The chapters on Napoleon III, the Resistance during the Second World War and the final chapter were especially absorbing. Our legends, and particularly the 'imramma' or magical Otherworld voyage tales, show how deep our involvement with the ocean goes.