Every page of this book yields unexpected and brilliant insights and sidelights into the motley collection of nationalities, languages, and races that somehow became France. The story of Bernadette of Lourdes. The creation of the "official" meter. The persecution of a particular group for a thousand years (and no, it wasn't the Jews). Add to this a smooth and witty prose style and you have a book that shouldn't be missed. It's one of those rare books about which, as Holden Caulfield would say, you feel like calling up the author after reading it.

Every page of this book yields unexpected and brilliant insights and sidelights into the motley collection of nationalities, languages, and races that somehow became France. The story of Bernadette of Lourdes. The creation of the "official" meter. The persecution of a particular group for a thousand years (and no, it wasn't the Jews). Add to this a smooth and witty prose style and you have a book that shouldn't be missed. It's one of those rare books about which, as Holden Caulfield would say, you feel like calling up the author after reading it.

Robb has generated a book which taught me much about a place I know little--France beyond Paris. The book seems a compilation of provincial lore and wisdom accumulated over several years' of bicycle travel through this country of peoples. It was generally enjoyable, but like a long uphill climb, was tiring in places. I often enjoy books in this genre, but I found this one occasionally lacking. I still recommend it, for it will open most readers' eyes to new notions, and the author is competent. I most enjoyed the section describing Cassini's mapping of France.

My lack of enthusiasm may be because I did not find the book to be tightly structured, and I sometimes found myself wanting a crisper roadmap for the direction of the text. I also wanted a better roadmap of France in the illustrations, as the many localities described had me turning to my own atlas much of the time. The major theses of the book are lightly woven into the text. One mildly recurring theme is a whiff of anti-clericism. At one point the author suggested the Church had more to fear from latent paganism than the revolutionaries of 1789; I suspect the thousands of clergy who were massacred by the Republicans after seeing their churches destroyed and properties taken might come to a different conclusion.

France is more than just Paris! There seems to be little written on life in provincial France and the author has certainly filled that void with this book. Who would have thought that life in rural France was so backward compared to not only Paris, but rural life in other European countries? Peasants at this time prayed to stone fertility statues, believed in werewolves and witches and were very ignorant of life outside of their little village--and most didn't even speak French.

This book is chock full of the history of cartographers, early travelers as well as daily life and thought.

There was a France long before there were the French.

If you're interested in French history, this is a must read.

Robb has done more than a yeoman's job in producing this book. It's not that difficult to write a book like this to be informative, but it is hard to write one that is pleasant to read. Robb has spun out a great many anecdotes while making the information not only plausible but entertaining.
My only regret is that he spent so much time researching a 'People' who probably will never appreciate what he has done.

Like the stereotypical French Cafe Waiter (never snap your fingers and yell Garcon); the French will probably turn up their collective noses at the thought that anyone but a "true" frenchman (i.e. a Parisian) could 'know' much less write about La Belle France. Most Parisians still look at their countrymen outside of 'Le Capital' as country bumpkins and half literate imbeciles who marry their first cousins.

In parts of the book (like the stories of the Cassini's I->IV), Robb mentions that there is little information about such and such. Here's hoping that he continues to write about these 'little known' areas and people so that the rest of us can be entertained while opening our eyes to more 'hidden history'. Thank you M.Robb.

I will not repeat the praises of the preceding reviewers with which I fully agree. This I must say: with Graham Robb I'm absorbing rather than reading. Like his Victor Hugo's biography, this book is a smooth flow of information that pumps one full. I feel satiated and richer in knowledge.

I thought this book was going to be some lost Phoenician or Roman giving us the landing of traders or invaders on the S.E. coast by present day Narbonne. Instead, an author, well accomplished in other types of writing, has presented a whole new vision. That panorama is in fact quite fragmented; a view of a country that never really was a country or a people. Mr. Robb pedals his gleanings, as it were, against the nationalist lore and myth, shows us the isolated pockets and where evident, their nearest neighbors.

I knew by my own plodding over the years, that south was more separate from north than in the United States, though there was not one civil war to decide anything, but many wars moving to their revolution over centuries.

My previous intellectual guide has been Braudel. His volumes on the identity of France formed my understanding before many extended trips there. I found his great studies to be true, so far as a limited agent such as I could discern. I had my maps and his, so I could observe roofing materials in each region. They still are true; Robb gives due credit to Braudel. But now the veil has lifted from that great man's work. We are presented with a new level of observance and insight.

But these accounts of fragmentation, solitude and silence formed for me a whole new aspect to my understanding. Yes I knew about the major dialects aside from the three major languages. Yet a fourth language group appears! But he maps them. He gives us a few comparative tables to see the words morph every few dozen kilometers.

I expect this work will give rise to a hundred more narrow and detailed projects. His boundaries of humble villager's travels indeed extend about and only so far as any local yeast. Nice to read and nice as a preparation for travel.

Appreciation of France and its history can be constrained by the translation factor. Non French speakers are limited to translations from French or texts written in English by Francophones. Graham Robb, obviously the latter, well serves the reader by his writing and research; the bulk of which is French. He brings with him his biographies of Balzac, Hugo and Rimbaud. Borrowing a page from Fernand Braudel, he ignores kings, revolutions, elections and wars to craft a history of the dialects of the language, the French people, their adaptation to the physical nature of the land and their work.
From the building and importance of the Canal du Midi, to the Gorges de Verdon, to Cassini's maps, Prosper Merrimee, the transhumance of its people and livestock, the tidbits of this history beguile and tantalize the reader. Robb''s thesis is that France was kept together by "the ant like activity of the small landholders" rather than "the grand schemes of Napoleon." He debunks some old chestnuts; the poplars and plane trees of France were not planted to offer shade for the French troops but because they just looked nice to the French. He views France from the eye of a cyclist, a hobby he admits to in the beginning. At the end, to give cycling its own historical significance, his short history of the Tour de France adds to France's sense of nationhood. Some writing is so tight packed that the reader retraces his words to get Robb's nuanced phrases. This is a book to hold in one's library and savor it once again before that next trip to la belle France.

For those who have visited, studied, and reflected on that immensely fascinating country called France, Robb's book provides a truly unique and informative view of the country's recent history that stands alone when compared to other recent "histories" of France. The book categorizes its own genre as "historical geography," but even if you've never read one of those, just dive in and watch the story unfold.

Much of France's mystique is based on the rich and iconographic legends surrounding the country's rise and development. It's perhaps easy to think that, once we have learned the main themes, we have "learned" the country. These main themes are indeed incredibly interesting in their own right: the rise of Charlemagne and the establishment of the Carolingian Empire, the development of educational institutions such as the cathedral schools and the university, the creation of premier architectural forms such as Early, High, Rayonnant, and Flamboyant Gothic styles, the rise of the Napoleonic Empire, the many artistic contributions of persons from all parts of the country, and the undeniable scientific advances made by the French in last three centuries. And yet, we find upon reading Robb's book that it is possible to know a little about all these things and perhaps not still have an understanding of how the France that we know today really came to be. It's a story interesting, surprising, and unusual, but it's a story worth telling, and it helps make all the rest of the story make even more sense.

Robb's text deals with the period between the French Revolution and the emergence of the 20th century. As such, the author particularly focuses on how the governmental programs initiated immediately after the Revolution impacted the lives of virtually every person in the country. Indeed, much of Robb's book argues that, prior to these events, France existed in a set of disparate and non-standardized "pays," with even such basics as language and weights and measures existing in unique forms in virtually every region. The text helps us hypothesize why the French people feel the way they do about their language, their way of life, and even their political and educational institutions.

Every Francophile will wish to consider this new entry into the historical collection of French history books. Don't be surprised if you end up with a renewed interest in what is already a fascinating history. Highly recommended.

This book is about France outside Paris, and more than a century ago. It reveals a strange, primitive place, with few connections to the outside world and where few people speak French. This is about the peasants and their lives, not about important people or national events.

This is an absolutely fascinating study of how the bits and pieces of "proto-France" were turned into the culture we know today (and assume always, sort of, at least recently, existed). I had no idea how many disparate bits there were. I understand better now the sense of strangeness I've had in small villages in the south of France, and the challenge of the regional accents. Beautifully researched, analyzed, and written. Required reading. Just brilliant.

Recommended to anyone interested in the development of France as a nation, also Europe in general. Full of original and surprising facts. Easy reading, as a narrative.

I am 80% of the way through this and learning heaps about the country in which I live. Fascinating - although someone could write a similar book about Germany or Italy as well, I am sure.

The author will take you on a guided tour of he largely unknown hinterlands of France which will keep you laughing on every other page. All the way from Roman Gaul whose roads are still some of the best, to today's high speed transport over four-lane highways to the TGV rail system. Discussing France's geography as well as the folkways of its inhabitants, your pleasure is unlikely to flag. The tales range from 50,000 nocturnal smuggling dogs, to the alpine trails which foraging animals have followed without supervision since before humans occupied the territory. Then there are magic statues whose devotees whittle away anatomical bits, until vital features of the figures disappear entirely, having been swallowed in water to extract the magic.
The tales cover the century from the onset of the Revolution (1789) to World War I. The history of ingenious and the herculean efforts to achieve map-making in France is almost worth the price of the book.
There are copious graphic vignettes of the inhabitants of the vast countryside of France outside Paris, where hundreds of languages and dialects are spoken that are totally alien to the French of the capital.
"Discovering France" is an astonishing surprise and is the most amusing book I have had the pleasure of reading for the last five years.
E.T. Dell, Jr.

The first half of this book was fascinating. I have been speaking French and studying France for 40 years and I learned many new things. The last half of the book sounded more like a diatribe against France and their culture. This led me to wonder how slanted the entire book is. However, it was certainly worth reading. A whole new view of France.

In my last ten trips to France, which last months at a time, I've constantly asked myself how, why, where, what????

After reading a hundred books on France, seeing 300 French movies, talking to thousands of French locals...

I am still only very slowly getting the picture.

But almost no other experience provided as big of a piece of the puzzle in a more enjoyable way than this book.

It is an overwhelming treasure of nuggets, mined, organized and presented with skills that leave me awestruck...

It's both essential and sublime, like meeting Handel in a Parisian park or gliding down a mountain in some Pyrenean paradise.

The only critical question I have is given the author's dazzling abilities, after I've fallen under his spell (here, or in his biographies of Balzac or Hugo) and suspended disbelief, how much did he really nail and how much just seems so because of the inertia he creates?

It is inconceivable to me that anyone could claim to know France or history without reading this book.

But then it is also inconceivable to me that this book could be created by a mortal, like only a handful of others I've chanced upon.

I don't think I'm exaggerating when I shout into the wind: GRAHAM ROBB IS A TREASURE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION -- and one more reason why we cannot ever dismiss the English despite their bad food, ugly cities, crimminal prices, and ruthless history.

Of course, in Paris's finest bookstores, they won't bother themselves with what any Englishman thinks about their country, which is a pity, because they, too, could learn from this book.

Highly touted book, many quaint episodes, emphasis on the isolated, poor, brutish, ignorant, superstitious, cruel life of peasants in the provinces -- nothing about the civilization, the arts, the culture, and indeed the food of France, all good things apparently concentrated in Paris, which the book treats only from the point of view of chimneysweeps and beggars. The author cites English travelers (no doubt of some wealth) about the lack of hygiene and decent victuals, as if life in rural England were quite different (c.f. Aikenfield.) He's English; does he like France?

One might believe French history is well known: the Louie's, Duc de Berry and the Book of Hours (lovely, lovely),Napoleons, Agincourt (Into the breach on St. Crispian's Day), WWI, WWI, etc. But while the French were discovering America and every place else, France itself was a mystery to itself; a country which couldn't even come to consensus on how to say "yes" (maybe that is a continuing problem, oui?). This great book fills in all those gaps with wonderful insights and sometimes counterintuitive suggestions of the changing faces of France.

Having lived in France for a few years I was curious about the passion with which french people talk and live their local "pays". I knew of course the traditional history of france and its centralisation - the parisienne view - not until I found Discovering France did I begin to appreciate how recent and partial the changes from rural France to France Metropolitan really are.

For anyone wanting to understand why or how France is as it is this is a must read. Highly recommended.

I just finished reading this book and I was very satisfied. Robb's treatment of the historical discovery of France was very engaging as it is not the history you hear in the classroom. He explains what was happening on the fields and not the palaces (where most histories focus their attention). I would suggest this book to anyone who wants to better understand France and its many roots.

One would have thought that while the American wild west was being settled, all of Europe had been sedate and blissful for centuries. Not so, as Graham Robb tells us in his wonderful new book, "The Discovery of France". Where a French national identity took years to build and a World War to cement, the different "pays" that loosely made up an amalgam of France had long been in evidence, if not for all to see. The journey to become one country took centuries.

Robb offers a wide and deep approach to the "discovery" of France. From the much-maligned cagots to the multi-cultural patois of the different villages and towns, the author points out that discrimination was the life-blood of tribal France. How the country became unified is the central core of the book and Robb investigates such things as how animals were viewed, why visitors (and later, "touristes") helped to baste the country together and even how the bicycle changed the course of modern France. It's quite an undertaking!

The highlight of "The Discovery of France", apart from the wonders that unfold, is the enjoyable narrative style with which Robb writes. While plunging into the depths of history over a wide range of topics, the author manages to keep the flow going nicely. This is not a quick read for a rainy day but one that takes necessary time to absorb what he transmits. The amount of information gleaned is remarkable...this is a man who knows France and is happy to compare notes. "The Discovery of France" is a thoughtful and extremely well-gathered book. I highly recommend it and congratulate Graham Robb for doing such an outstanding job in presenting it.

This is a fine book for Francophiles or just for those who think they know more about France than they think they do. That might apply to many of the French as well.

I've known from other sources that French as a national language is much more reason than many assume. But it comes as a shock to others. Only a century ago, it was the language of less than half of the French people. People spoke Breton, Occitan or any of several other languages as a first tongue. Rural France could be and sometimes still is as remote as some of the emptier places of the US.

France is still a country of regions and there are towns with very old roots, but modern communications and transport is erasing some of the more glaring differences.

EVeryone thinks they know of the French Wars, but almost no one knows about the village wars which were surprisingly common through the late 1800s, usually not very fatal and over trivial causes. But these wars could involve thousands.

After years of traveling to France, it is still a jolt to see the dead of dead of france honored in two languages in the South, those of WWI in Occitan or some relative and those of WWII in French. Similar but different. Really a fine book -- although always open to question when an Oxford man takes on the air of an expert on France.

Truth be told, as a Francophile, nothing would've stopped me from getting this book. The modern French are not like you and I, 17th-19th century Frenchmen are in another galaxy altogether. Very few, hell I can't think of one outside of Peter Mayle's Provence collection, deals with the French culture outside of Ile-de-France. Graham Robb does a favor with this book for Francophiles hungry for English books on French history and life that isn't about DeGaulle, Napoleon, or Paris. The book is about the French before they became "French".

As such, the focus becomes mainly on the population of France before the 20th century, mainly, overwhelmingly rural. That means a story of a poor, illiterate, superstitious, and excuse for me saying this, hilarious population. One passage revealed to me the possible source of the 35-hour workweek. "Farm workers rarely worked more than two hundred days a year. Factory workers rarely worked more than two hundred and sixty days. (p. 101)" You can say that the French people are working harder today than ever before!

The pervasive influence of French rural life continue with the country today. Like the seasonal nature of French harvest. By the time winter rolls around, extreme boredom sets in (ennui). Robb makes the connection that under this circumstances, the craftsmanship we come to associate with the French arose, not only to bide the time, but also as an economic necessity.

France is a vast country, and Robb's France encompasses all regions from Brittany to Aquitane. The book to me is a window to these other places that very few works are written about in English.

The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography, from the Revolution to the First World War

This "history" offers the reader insight into the diversity of populations melding to form a cohesive French society. The reader learns that France is far from homogeneous, that railroad incursions, state appointed teachers, geographers, etc. led to inclusion of highly isolated and parochial populations and that remnants of this vast web of localities, termed pays, offers the traveler rich differences and opportunities to discover a patchwork of microcultures that vibrate with customs indigenous to the various pays.

The first world war savagely brought isolated groups into modern society and British tourism, the tentacles of Paris culture, the dredging of marshland and swamps with concommitant road construction, intolerance of language dialects differing from French, all served to unify the population.

This was a very well reviewed book about an interesting subject. Which trailed off at the end, drew few conclusions, and pointed out human stupidity. But did suggest that travel in France could be interesting. If one looked off the beaten path.

After a hundred plus pages of this book, I am sticking it back on the shelf and grabbing one of several other volumes that I am actually eager to read.

This is a great disappointment to me, because I am keenly interested in the topic of this book. And I know that Robb has a great reputation as a literary scholar and writer. And, I was more than a little intrigued that he had done a lot of his research on a bicycle. (Cycling in France is a pleasure that I have only lightly sampled but have always in my dreams.)

Nonetheless, the book, IMO, is tedious. Many, no doubt, will find it "erudite." I like rich and complex ideas, but I like them laid out in fairly direct sentences. I don't mind if the sentences get a little long, but I expect close attention to be rewarded with clear understanding. I did not find that in Robb's book. His larger meanings are clear enough but, at times, he seems to bring to prose the stylistic impulses of impressionist painters. What a particular sentence or paragraph means can be very elusive.

This is rich cultural history from the bottom up and provides the important insights that are completely lost in the usual histories that concern themselves with a tiny elite. I hate to put it on the shelf, because I am afraid that I will never pull it down again. It will be a shame if I miss the substance of what else Robb has to say, but -- for now at least -- I just don't have the patience for it.

This book has wonderful qualities that I am certain will be picked up by other reviewers. But I would like to add the following. This is the most profound examination of how nationality is enforced on a group of people, with the internal colonization process and the stamping out of idiosyncratic traits. As someone suspicious of government and state control, I was wondering how France did so well in spite of having a big government. This book gave me the answer: it took a long time for the government and the "nation" to penetrate the depth of deep France, "la France profonde". It was not until recently that French was spoken by the majority of the citizens. Schools taught French but it was just like Greek or Latin: people forgot it right after they finished their (short) school life. For a long time France's villages were unreachable.
A great book, a great investigation.

France has always been a highly centralized country. Paris, like the Sun King, has always been the center around which lesser entities revolved. As a result, most histories of France focused on Paris, the political, economic, cultural, artistic, and just about everything else center of French life.

Graham Robb, an expert in French literature with biographies of Balzac and Hugo to his credit, has written an excellent history of France as seen from the provinces and from the seat of a bicycle. Let me explain. Robb peddled some 14,000 miles over a ten year period studying French rural culture. His original intention was to write a historical guidebook, but in the process of going off the beaten path he discovered the cultural and linguistic richness of the provinces.

France's centralizing process began before the Revolution with Louis XIV, who started to impose the cultural and linguistic norms of Paris and the Ile-de-France region on the rest of France. The Jacobins and Napoleon continued the process by extending Paris' administrative units throughout the country. Jargon-inclined literary critics have termed this gradual takeover as the colonization of the interior.

Robb learned from his travels that the centralization process was never as rapid or as complete as previously thought. In 1800, only 11% of the population spoke French (the official Parisian version) and a hundred years later only about 20% spoke it. Aside from separate languages such as Basque and Breton, there were 55 dialects and hundreds of sub-dialects. It was not until World War I - where this story ends - that it could be said that French, as we know it today, became the universal language within France itself. This was due not only to the war, but also to roads, railways, and the telegraph.

And speaking of roads, Robb, on his bicycle travelled paths inaccessible by automobile. He found very isolated villages that still spoke archaic dialects and followed strange rituals. There were people that believed in the supernatural, witchcraft, magic mountains, and healing springs. It is a picture of France that is in sharp contrast with a country that prides itself on being the beacon of civilization and modernity.

Robb also informs us that we will learn more from regional France in the future. Just as France has declined as an imperial power, Paris is losing its hegemony over the provinces. These lesser known linguistic and cultural traditions are emerging from the shadows. In fact many Parisians are no longer claiming to be Parisian, but proudly declaring to be from the region from which they originally came.

Robb's love of his subject is obvious from his entertaining anecdotes. If you are not a francophile already, you will be after reading this book.