Philip Hensher

Graham Robb deserves to be a French national treasure

His stunning new history of France, full of previously overlooked sources, is the result of deep research – and much arduous cycling

Graham Robb. [Alamy]

This is a ceaselessly interesting, knowledgeable and evocative book about France over thousands of years. Is it at all likely to have been produced by a French writer? Though it’s about some deeply serious subjects, it’s very amusing; it makes no attempt to constrain itself within an overarching theoretical framework; it would be impossible to extract from it a grand statement beginning ‘The French are all…’; it is pragmatic, full of enterprising scholarly initiative and a gift for observation without intruding.

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