A swift, Whiggish survey of French history from the Middle Ages, learned but not especially pointed save perhaps for relaying French attitudes in native English. 1214’s battle of Bouvines, which won Anjou (the seat of Angevin England) for the Bourbons (and coincidentally prompted John to concede Magna Carta and shifted the balance of continental power from the Holy Roman Empire), commenced the building of the hexagon and national memory. The reign of Louis IX (St. Louis, d.1270), successor to Bouvines’ victor Philip August, extended the country by incorporating Languedoc, Provence, Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Poitou, raising French populace (in 1330) to 22 million (with 300,000 in Paris) versus 2 million in England (40,000 in London). France passed into absolutism in 1483 upon Louis XI’s death, albeit the country staggered through a succession of wars and civil wars most every century, often devastating the metropole. Henri of Navarre’s (Henri IV) 1580 siege of Paris was such an event, killing an estimated 20 percent of residents. Rebuilding the city and proving an adept diplomat while the Duc de Sully tended to administration, he won the trust of both Catholics and Huguenots. Cardinal Richelieu, on the other hand, outshone Louis XIII; he saw France as caught between Spain, Austria, and Protestant Germany; and that necessity drives events more than volition. In the 17th century France produced such great intellectuals as Descartes, Corneille (who advocated freedom of will against tragic classicism), and Montaigne (a social critic); the author laments recent times have been more fallow. In 1643, France defeated imperial Spain at Rocroi, marking the beginning of the Habsburgs’ long fall, yet immediately after the Peace of Westphalia (1648) there was a contest for control of the regency. The Fronde facilitated Louis XIV’s absolutism and the irrelevance of Parlement. Colbert’s reforms produced prosperity for the Sun King, but the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) drove out some 400,000 of 18 million citizens (Europe’s largest populace by some 10 million, save Russia). Bourgeois disdain for effete aristocrats dates to this era. The Revolution’s greatest casualty was the Catholic Church. Napoleonic roads were built for the military, bypassing the provinces; from 1803 every Parisian workman had to carry a passbook, favoring employers. Taken together, the author seems to suggest the provincial working class remained apart. Nationalism came in only in the mid 19th century. Pax Britannica was good for France, which built its second overseas empire while also industrializing. Cohesion floundered in the Prussian War, the Paris Commune (fatalities of 20,000 – 25,000 exceeded the Terror), and the Dreyfus affair. French mutinies during World War I was not realized by the Germans until Petain remedied affairs; the French disliked Woodrow Wilson. The 1938 Matignon agreement, a labor victory at the expense of readying for war, marked the climax of the left’s interwar successes. Horne laments the impossibility of relaying the nature of World War II occupation, fairly abjuring the historian’s role. Sartre was guilty of Socrates’ crime (i.e., corrupting the youth): Camus pointed up existentialism justifies totalitarian systems which oppose individual responsibility. The French were more concerned with the Hungarian invasion than Dien Bien Phu or Suez; the Algeria crisis ended with the remarkable absorption of 1 million pied noirs. De Gaulle is treated respectfully. Mitterand, who broke the Communists, rebuilt the economy (flagging since Trentes Glorieuses), and drove European integration, has been De Gaulle’s only real successor.