The History of Modern France

August 8, 2016
In this unsatisfying history, Fenby (Will China Dominate the 21st Century?), a British financial consultant and former journalist, aims to illuminate France’s apparent 21st-century cultural, political, and economic “morosité” by digging into its past. He subscribes to the hoary notion, widely shared on both sides of the Atlantic, that France remains caught in the tension between the poles of the French Revolution: order and liberty, the past and the present. “More than most nations, France carries the weight of its history in its view of itself,” Fenby offers as an unverifiable platitude. Though his organizing idea—that France always pits “the two sides descended from the Revolution against one another”—is conventional, he relates the history of the Gallic people since 1789 in jaunty style. The events of over two centuries come thick and fast; unsurprisingly, his pages accumulate too much detail as he approaches the present. But his humorous stories (mostly of the mighty) are delightful. Belying the book’s light touch, Fenby ends on a rueful note—that “the French have become prisoners of the heritage of their past.” Is that what distinguishes French history from other nations’ histories? It’s not convincing. One wishes that Fenby had found a fresher way to see things.