Not a bad neighbour, just difficult

The French rarely read books by foreigners about their history. This is a pity, for their own historians have not always done the job well. The ideological fault-lines of French intellectual life have obstructed understanding of France’s 20th century. A francocentric view of the world has added to the problem. So, until recently, has the absence of the tradition of lacerating self-criticism and collective guilt common in the rest of Europe. Dreyfus, the fall of France, Vichy, Indo-China, the Algerian war, these are all difficult and delicate subjects in France. Things are beginning to improve, but much of the best work on the country’s modern history is still being written by Englishmen and Americans.

Rod Kedward’s La Vie en Bleu is a case in point. It is not a work of original research, and does not pretend to be. But it is an outstanding synthesis of modern scholarship on almost every aspect of the last century of French history, elegantly written, intelligently selective and marvellously perceptive.