For anyone who’s interested in France or going to be visiting France this is a must read! Fantastic!

This is more like a reference book than a memoir. Very informative and of interest to Francophiles and those wishing for a detailed introspection on an interesting country.

I enjoyed Graham Robbs previous books on France. This maybe is TOO detailed. I just wasn’t as intrigued by the deep dive into history.

There is an awful lot of information in this book. I am still in mid-read. I prefer to read a chunk then absorb it. I can then savour the book slowly as I know I will be disappointed when it ends. It not a straight forward history book. It almost has the feel of historical fiction but also includes the author's travels to the places describing them as they are now. A brilliant blend.
This is an honest review of a complementary ARC.

France: An Adventure History by Graham Robb I found this book very interesting especially as France in now my second home. This book is a great reference book and a fascinating read. However, I did skip a few chapters it was so long! but what I read was very good.

This is a book of several parts, a standard history, a travelogue and a memoir. the three mesh together but not are all as successful. 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. 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. Better editing would have improved this

A detailed and well researched history of France since Gauls. It was a fascinating read and I appreciated the style of writing.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

A really fascinating book on the history of France, I would definitely go back through this with a physical copy to note the interesting facts. Could have done with being slightly shorter but fairness, it is the history of a very old country!

Books that detail the history of a specific country or region have one major drawback: most date so quickly that they are frequently regularly replaced by new tomes on the shelves of the bookshops I frequent. I am hoping this will not happen to Graham Robb’s enormous efforts, comprised within the pages of this book. Robb studied modern languages, earnt a PhD for his research in French literature, and has published on famous French writers such as Victor Hugo and Arthur Rimbaud, and this intense interest in French culture shows in this book. Taking us on a long trip from the first century, when the Romans clashed with the Gauls, to the twenty-first century of a country governed by Emmanuel Macron, this is a vivid, often humorous, but always engaging history of a fascinating country that more than lives up to its ambitious title. Thank you to NetGalley and to the publishers for the free ARC I received in exchange for producing this review. It is a book I shall return to regularly!

A detailed history of France that includes the early Gauls, the French Revolution and Louis 14th, among other things, which latter king interested me more than any other. Snippets of information enliven the history and are the best part of a fascinating book, which I found enjoyable and I would highly recommend this book.