Each essay is headed with a year and they are ordered chronologically, divided in twelve sections. Each section has a general introduction (expanded for this English edition), which helps a little with context, but the book as a whole really assumes a general knowledge of French history. (Other changes from the 2017 French Histoire mondiale de la France include the addition of more English references and the omission of a few essays — it would have been interesting to know which ones.)

There's a fascinating array of pieces. Some are focused geographically, such as "Troyes, a Talmudic Capital (1105)" and "Dunkirk: Nest of Spies (1662)". Others centre particular works of art or literature, such as "Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907)", or particular people, such as "Jacques Coeur Dies in Chios (1456)", or key events/agreements such as "The Marriage of France and England (1420)" or "A Very Muted 'Yes' (1992)". Quite a few treated topics I had never thought about: "The Science of Water Management in Thirteenth-Century France" (1247), for example, and "Museums of Europe, Year Zero" (1815), on the restoration of artworks following the fall of Napoleon.

France in the World is not as long as its page count suggests, as its pages have very generous white space and fewer than two hundred words. I ended up reading it straight through, after some initial dabbling, and enjoyed it immensely. The individual pieces are a good length to read in a sitting and eschew theory or historiography.

August 2024

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