1000 Years of Annoying the French

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Harold didn’t need to hire expensive lawyers to dream up a credible defence, though – what hostage is going to refuse to take an oath to a man who is holding him hostage? And what jurisdiction did this Norman foreigner have in England?” Things have been just a little awkward between Britain and France ever since the Norman invasion in 1066. Fortunately—after years of humorously chronicling the vast cultural gap between the two countries—author Stephen Clarke is perfectly positioned to investigate the historical origins of their occasionally hostile and perpetually entertaining pas de deux.

The author also concludes this book by saying: “we can proudly affirm that, right down at DNA level, we’re not the same as the French. Vive la différence! (Long live the difference!)” Which honestly summarizes the essence of the problem, not just of the French/British conflicts. French and British history overlaps so much during the last thousand years, it’s impossible to separate one from the other. And yet some people still see things as “us” versus “them.” What this book should have concluded with is by saying that we’re all human. We all make mistakes. What’s done is done. Let’s learn from our mistakes and move on from them. It’s never been “us” versus “them.” It’s just been “us” the whole time, fighting amongst each other. And now it’s time to put our differences aside and start working together as one people, living together on the same planet and facing the same problems.Autumn 1945 - Off the east coast of England, a Japanese sub surfaces, unloads its mysterious cargo, then blows itself to pieces. Although history is the opinion of whoever decides to interpret certain selected facts a certain way, it’s helpful to know that there are alternative ways to interpret facts so that the French don’t get the glory for many things they think they’re responsible for. As a Brit, that’s very satisfying. On hindsight, this is a really good book to get yourself familiar with the history of these two countries, even if you're not from either of them. It is funny and interesting enough to grab your attention and not letting it go. This is a very French trait. Today, if a big manufacturing company is in trouble, it will parachute in a graduate of one of France’s grandes écoles, someone who has studied business theory and maths for ten years but never actually been inside a factory. The important thing to the French is not experience, it is leadership – or, more exactly, French-style leadership, which mainly involves ignoring advice from anyone with lots of experience but no French grande école on their CV.”

The narrative flows well and is littered with jokes such as those mentioned above. But this is not history dumbed down, it is as informative as any core text book. Who knew that modern champagne was invented in England, that Dom Perignon tried to remove the fizziness from the French stuff because the bottles kept exploding whereas the English went crazy for it and the fizzier the better? A Finalist for the 2022 James Beard Foundation Cookbook Award and the 2022 IACP Award (International) This book took me a while to finish because, like I do with nonfiction, I dipped in and out of it. While I did know about some periods of the 1000 years it was covering, I wasn't an expert enough to critique the information it provided in the book so I can't comment on the accuracy. However, I liked how the book was split into sections and the actual information was very readable as well. To give the simplest of examples – go into the British Embassy in Paris, and what do you see in the first anteroom you enter? A grand portrait of the Duke of Wellington, the man who effectively ended the career of France’s greatest general, Napoleon Bonaparte. Essentially, a two-century-old defeat is brandished in the face of every French visitor to Britain’s diplomatic headquarters … in France’s own capital city.Verrazzano must have been turning in his grave. (Except that he didn’t have one because he’d been eaten.)” We Brits feel no resentment about 'losing' our American colonies. We're quite fond of independent Americans, and see them as distant cousins who can't spell our language properly. We've cooperated with America pretty amicably on projects like liberating Europe and inventing pop music. And we have no desire whatsoever to try and govern Texas.”

A bonus is that the humor is on point most of the times which by itself this saves the book in many cases. Ten centuries' worth of French historical 'facts' bite the dust as Stephen Clarke looks at what has really been going on since 1066 ...

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The chapters come with delightful sub-headings, such as "In India and Tahiti: France Gets Lost In Paradise: A selection of historical Frenchmen lose India, fail to notice Australia and give sexually transmitted diseases to Pacific islanders" and "How Britain Killed Off the Last French Royals: And the Victorians said, 'It was an accident, honest.' Three times." History is often looked upon as "boring" or "too-serious" and this is true in many cases, but as deep as humor has roots inside the humanity, a funny author can makes wonders. Clarke sets the record straight, documenting how French braggarts and cheats have stolen credit rightfully due their neighbors across the Channel while blaming their own numerous gaffes and failures on those same innocent Brits for the past thousand years. Deeply researched and written with the same sly wit that made A Year in the Merde a comic hit, this lighthearted trip through the past millennium debunks the notion that the Battle of Hastings was a French victory (William the Conqueror was really a Norman who hated the French) and pooh-poohs French outrage over Britain’s murder of Joan of Arc (it was the French who executed her for wearing trousers). He also takes the air out of overblown Gallic claims, challenging the provenance of everything from champagne to the guillotine to prove that the French would be nowhere without British ingenuity. Granted, this is more of a fun book than a history reference, and the writer isn't outright hostile to the French and simply retold the facts; but in a biased manner.