• France

  • An Adventure History
  • By: Graham Robb
  • Narrated by: Tom Lawrence
  • Length: 17 hrs and 1 min
  • 3.6 out of 5 stars (16 ratings)

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France  By  cover art

France

By: Graham Robb
Narrated by: Tom Lawrence
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Publisher's summary

Beginning with the Roman army's first recorded encounter with the Gauls and ending in the era of Emmanuel Macron, France takes listeners on an endlessly entertaining journey through French history. Frequently hilarious, always surprising, Graham Robb's France combines the stylistic versatility of a novelist with the deep understanding of a scholar.

Robb's own adventures and discoveries while living, working, and traveling in France connect this tour through space and time with on-the-ground experience. There are scenes of wars and revolutions from the plains of Provence to the slums and boulevards of Paris. Robb conveys with wit and precision what it felt like to look over the shoulder of a young Louis XIV as he planned the vast garden of Versailles, and the dangerous thrill of having a ringside seat at the French revolution. Some of the protagonists may be familiar, but appear here in a very different light—Caesar, Charlemagne, Louis XIV, Napoleon Bonaparte, General Charles de Gaulle.

This extraordinary narrative is the fruit of decades of research and thirty thousand miles on a self-propelled, two-wheeled time machine (a bicycle). Even seasoned Francophiles will wonder if they really know that terra incognita on the edge of Europe that is currently referred to as "France."

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Graham Robb (P)2022 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

What listeners say about France

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Loved it. Just my kind of history.

My favorite chapter, I admit, was the quirky search for the tree, but I loved it all

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

A Complex Story

This book’s detailed narratives are history descriptions linked to the author’s visits to sites via bicycle. One learns. Recommend combining audio with reading using Kindle to improve comprehension.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

France’s history through story and vignette

Wonderful. Robb uses small moments in time and place to tell the larger story of France. Funny, smart and illuminating.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant storytelling

Superbly layered, lots of quality learning; well balanced look at deep core samples and fair, insightful critique of more recent events; narrator could've done better by the French within.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderful quirky telling. Very erudite and amusing.

Alas, wonderful as the writing is, totally entertaining and idiosyncratic in its views and observations, I nearly lost my mind hearing a very British accent mangle nearly all the French words by placing the accent on the wrong syllable. If you don’t know French it won’t matter but if you do it may prove very irritating. Otherwise I hated it to end.

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