History of France

John Julius Norwich--called a 'true master of narrative history' by Simon Sebag Montefiore--returns with the book he has spent his distinguished career wanting to write, A History of France a portrait of the past two centuries of the country he loves best. Beginning with Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul in the first century BC, this study of French history comprises a cast of legendary characters--Charlemagne, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Joan of Arc and Marie Antionette, to name a few--as Norwich chronicles France's often violent, always fascinating history. From the French Revolution--after which neither France, nor the world, would be the same again--to the storming of the Bastille, from the Vichy regime and the Resistance to the end of the Second World War, A History of France is packed with heroes and villains, battles and rebellion, stories so enthralling that Norwich declared, 'I can honestly say that I have never enjoyed writing a book more.' With his celebrated stylistic panache and