A History of France - John Julius Norwich (2018)

As a keen student of English history, it was inevitable that I would keep bumping into French kings, dukes, and other notables during my studies, and the more books I read about the same topics, the more the same Fenchmen kept popping up. The problem was, I had a hard time placing them in relation to each other, and remembering which Philip or Louis or Henri was present during which conflict with England. So while I eventually built up a cursory knowledge of some eras of French history, I know precious little about others. Basically, my knowledge consists of bigger chunks from 1066 to Catherine de Medici, and after that only a few tiny snippets about the Revolution, Napoleon, and the two World Wars. I decided a while ago to read a complete history of France to fill in the rest, and when I found out that John Julius Norwich (whose Four Princes I read and loved) was coming out with one this year, I knew it was the one for me.

For the most part, I was satisfied with my choice. The book is immensely readable, chock full of information, both academic and anecdotal, and since I'm unashamedly a fan of the "great men" approach to history writing, it fit me to a t. It was also surprisingly nice to switch to "the other side" for a change, to see things more fully from the French perspective. I especially enjoyed Norwich's dig at Henry II of England's "four appalling sons", and him outright stating that Richard I was one of England's worst kings? It's technically true but I've never seen any historian admit it, and I appreciate honesty and ballsiness. Then again I already adored Norwich's style in Four Princes, and it remained the same here: conversational, always to the point, and funny as it can be. Also, this time his obvious love for all things French shone through as well, which added an additional layer of emotion whenever something horrible had to be described.

I really only have one minor, tiny complaint, and even that has more to do with me than with the book itself: it goes into way too much detail about some periods, and practically skips over others, or deals with them only in a few sentences, and it's not always a matter of lack of sources. Starting from the chapters dealing with the Revolution, I was practically bombarded with names of politicians, soldiers, journalists, etc, most of whom only appeared once and I forgot their names as soon as I got to the next one, and never got the feeling that they were all so important to merit a mention. On the other end of the scale were the early years, from Ceasar to Charlemagne, of which I wanted to know much more. At one point he mentions that he's gonna skip some twenty early rulers because it would just get confusing and in any case they're not that significant, which made me sad because I actually wanted to know about them all. Obviously, it's incredibly hard, nigh impossible, to fit 2000 years of history into 400 pages, and I knew before I even started that I would have to read some other, more specific histories of my favourite eras if I truly wanted to learn everything... So while I did have some issues when it came to balancing between old and modern, all in all the author did a wonderful job of summarizing French history for the casual reader, as well as making me want to learn much more about it.

Finally, although I hate to finish this on a sad note but I feel like I have to: I didn't know it at the time of reading but sadly, John Julius Norwich passed away this June, at the age of 89 . Rest in peace, Sir. You were wonderful, and I'll keep reading your books for many years to come.