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A Brief History of France

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A Brief History of France

By: Cecil Jenkins
Narrated by: Tristan Bernays
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About this listen

When we think of France we often evoke images of fine food and wine, the elegant boulevards of Paris, the chic beaches of St Tropez. Yet, as the largest country in Europe, it is a place of huge diversity. The idea of 'Frenchness' emerged from over 2,000 years of history and it is a riveting story from Roman conquest to the present day.

Cecil Jenkins tells the story of the formation of this nation through its people, great events and culture. Through this narrative he charts why the French began to see themselves as so different from the rest of Europe and why, today, they face the same problems of identity as many other nations.

©2011 Cecil Jenkins (P)2014 Audible Ltd Europe France
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Most relevant

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

No. Narrator's pronunciation of French names poor.

What was most disappointing about Cecil Jenkins’s story?

See above

Who might you have cast as narrator instead of Tristan Bernays?

Anyone who can pronounce French words with a decent accent.

Could you see A Brief History of France being made into a movie or a TV series? Who would the stars be?

No.

Any additional comments?

Has potential and has a good balance of historical fact and the inevitable goriness through the ages. One additional massacre to mention is that of the French language by the narrator whose pronunciation of French names and places can be abysmal at times.

Great potential but...

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I was excited about the appearance on audible of a book on the history of France but potential listeners should be warned that this book has a very modern focus. Although it starts right from pre-history, the speed is very fast and the first world war is reached with less than half the book completed. By contrast there is a hugely detailed discussion of the regimes of recent French presidents. This will appeal to some, but was certainly not what I expected from the title. The narration was good, though not in the very top class.

Mostly modern history

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Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Yes, if you want a reasonable overview of French history without too much detail or analysis.

Would you be willing to try another one of Tristan Bernays’s performances?

No. I found the narration irritating, especially in terms of the pronunciation of French words. Vowel sounds in particular were routinely butchered, and the narrator sounded like he was taking a deep breath and a run up before attempting a French word, often pausing momentarily after each one as though to savour his safe landing at the other end. It should have been possible to find someone who knew how to pronounce the language. Apart from this, he lacked the gravitas for the subject, IHMO. I didn't feel he knew anything about history.

Any additional comments?

The book gets more detailed as it goes on, and so is somehwat lopsided in its coverage. The pre-20th century century sections are dealt with fairly summarily (not a criticism, since the book is only 11 or so hours long anyway) whereas the postwar period is discussed in a lot more detail (up to Sarkozy). For example, the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 seemed to get about as much mention as the French car and aerospace industries.

Good race through French history, bad narration

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This is, in my opinion, a well-paced delivery of a succinct history by a narrator who sounded as if he was enjoying both the subject and narrating it. He also seemed to possess a knowledge of it which I feel was evidence by his confident delivery.
The author has given sufficient information to provide a general background to modern France and the relationships it has with other nations as well as its constituent parts. Cecil Jenkins left enough signposts throughout the book for further study into areas and topics of interest without bogging the listener down with excessive detail.
My interest is mainly in the Fourth and Fifth Republics but understanding them is not really possible without a knowledge of the preceding history and significant people, events and dates. This book achieved that.
Tristan Bernays narration is lively and clear with a natural flow and sense of humour.
The brief mention and significance, early on, of Asterix, from where I and probably many others gained a lot of my early French, was a gem and put a new perspective on my childhood memories.
If history had been delivered in a similar manner, both content and portrayal, when I was at school my life may have taken a different course.

If only this had been around when I was at school.

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The speaker rattled through this very quickly... I had to slow him down a bit... and in an uncomfortably upper class English accent.
It was apparent very quickly that there were large chunks of the evolution towards l'hexagon entirely left out leaving large gaps in any understanding of the culture and people of France.
The locus of the story before 1700s was entirely around Kings Lords and land ownership. The formation of the Southern borders, the impact of the wars of religion from the Cathars, to the ownership of Poitou and Burgundy, to the protestant/ Catholic wars, including the Moors and the southern French borders were skipped over with a scathing and indecent haste. Infact the Moors were described using modern language such that it was hard to distinguish who her was dismissing...
When Alienor ( the most powerful Queen of medieval times and Matriarch of half of the royal families of Europe who lived twice as long as most women of her time and birthed a dynasty) was dismissed in 2 sentences as a selfish teenager who slept with her Uncle .. (not evidenced and the delusion of a maniacal and half starved child King) ... it was apparent that this was not a history written with an egalitarian view.
The end of Ch 2 had us almost at 1800s when the idolatry of male philosophers bored me into switching off.
Do not recommend if you want a rounded history of the people of what is now known as France, as the people are less important to this author than the Kings who squabbled over them.
No wonder there was a revolution.
Wish I hadn't bothered.

Selective and unbalanced- don't bother

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