I am a historian with wide-ranging interests and publications, including, in European history, histories of Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Mediterranean, eighteenth-century Europe, Europe 1550-1800, Europe since 1945, and European warfare.
I wrote...
France: A Short History
By
Jeremy Black
What is my book about?
This is an accessible, up-to-date, illustrated history of France and the French that captures the absence of any inevitable pattern of development, and also the interactions of the geography of France with political circumstances. While taking an essentially chronological approach, there is an engagement with important continuities. A helpful guide to understanding France today.
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The Books I Picked & Why
France Since 1945
By
Robert Gildea
Why this book?
The leading British interpreter of French history from 1940 produced this valuable guide to a period of major transformation in French history. Gildea has cogently argued that French politics reflects long-lasting divisions that play out in different mileux.
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Paris: The Biography of a City
By
Colin Jones
Why this book?
No history of France can be complete without Paris, and this is the best account of that city, told adroitly by a specialist who conveys his enthusiasm well. Jones successfully presents Paris both as a unit and as a context for a range of identities and experiences.
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The Oxford History of the French Revolution
By
William Doyle
Why this book?
Bill Doyle is the leading British interpreter of the French Revolution and this is a subtle account of its causes and course. Very good on the need to look for specific political causes rather than any supposedly inevitable pattern of socio-economic conflict.
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The Merovingian Kingdoms 450 - 751
By
Ian Wood
Why this book?
The best point of departure for our understanding of medieval France, and a skillful build on often fragmentary sources. Wood shows how ‘barbarian’ invaders meshed with elements of Romanitas in order to produce continuities, notably in Christianity, as well as a very different society of rulership.
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The Valois: Kings of France 1328-1589
By
Robert Knecht
Why this book?
A scholarly account of the family that ruled France from 1328 to 1589. Knecht concentrates on the high politics, but his book is a valuable linkage of the Middle Ages and the early-modern age, taking readers from the Hundred Years’ War to the French Wars of Religion. France’s bloody history emerges clearly.