Description
Book SynopsisA diverse array of historians provide autobiographical essays in which they explore their intellectual, political, and personal engagements with France and its past.
Trade ReviewWhy France? is a mirror of intelligence in which France may see itself reflected.
-- Jean-Frederic Schaub * Rue 89 *
An entertaining and thought-provoking series of meditations... The tales from the archive become new ways to understand how individual scholarship is shaped by and can in turn shape intellectual trends.
-- Jeffrey Jackson * Modern and Contemporary France *
France, eternal and changing, is examined without concessions, especially in its relationship with the U.S. A beautiful, two-way history lesson.
-- Laurent Theis * Le Point *
These historians are not afraid to open up and reveal their sensibility, even their sensuality. They express the richness of their historical vocation and the gains of a self-discovery that is made possible or intensified by distance and alterity. Their confidences, sometimes colored by tenderness, express candidly an attachment to France that changes form across time.
-- Alain Corbin * Le Monde *
These lively, funny, insightful essays, caught between the objective approach of historical reality and a fuzzier, unstable sentimental perspective, make up a photo album of postwar France.
-- Rogert Maggiori * Liberation *
This eminently readable book is a must-read for all teachers of French civilization.
-- Tom Conner * French Review *
