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Article: France in the New Century.(Review)(Brief Review)
- Article from:
- Contemporary Review
- Article date:
- November 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Contemporary Review Company Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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John Ardagh. Viking. [pounds]20.00.757 pages. ISBN 0-67088360-3.
This is not a book of predictions, but a survey of France in the latter half of the twentieth century. John Ardagh's ability to know and understand France is matched by his powers of acute perception and narrative command. He has an eye for telling detail, and a sense of perspective so that a complex way of life is revealed as it is, living and changing before a watchful observer's vantage.
It's tempting to see France casually as sophisticated Paris with charming rural hinterlands. Give or take a new autoroute or glass pyramid, France doesn't seem to change over the years. Gendarmes ...