France on the Brink
A Great Civilization in the New Century
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- 74,99 zł
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- 74,99 zł
Publisher Description
This completely revised and fully updated edition of the book Bill Bryson called “superb” presents a sharply insightful, authoritative portrait of France today as it struggles to live up to its vision of itself amid storm clouds that won’t go away.
France on the Brink was chosen as a New York Times book of the year and hailed by the Wall Street Journal as “a comprehensive and entertaining diagnosis of what ails French society” when the first edition was published at the turn of the century. Since then, the crisis enveloping France has only worsened, and this second edition, completely revamped to cover the developments of the past fifteen years, offers a fresh assessment of where the nation stands. New chapters chart political developments under Presidents Chirac, Sarkozy, and Hollande; the rise of the hard right National Front; and the unrelenting economic woes that have led to unprecedented levels of disillusion and fragmentation. The country’s social evolution is covered comprehensively, with description and analysis of urban and rural life, regional divisions, tensions over immigration and the fading of the symbols that denoted France’s greatness.
High unemployment, an archaic economic system, a self-selecting governing class unable to handle serious problems, and a debilitating clash between individualism and the powerful state machine that was built on a foundation reaching back to the Revolution of 1789 continue to plague the nation, making it less able than ever to fulfill its role as a world leader. The economic crisis and the European Union’s ongoing fiscal instability, as well as a parade of scandals at the top, have left it weaker than ever halfway into the second decade of the new century.
Jonathan Fenby has covered France for fifty years. In this new edition, he offers a loving though candid and unvarnished picture of the nation, contrasting its glorious past with current realities. He explores not only the problems and the challenges but also the opportunities that lie ahead if only its political class can finally face reality—and carry the people along with them. Filled with contemporary and historical anecdotes, France on the Brink depicts the many contradictory aspects of the world’s most complex, seductive, and sometimes infuriating country, and will give even the most knowledgeable Francophile plenty to think about.
Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
There are more facts and stories in Fenby's primer on what ails France than there are bubbles in a magnum of champagne. Fenby, a British journalist who reported from France for 30 years, methodically and relentlessly undermines France's notion of itself. Most of the critiques are not novel (we know that not nearly as many French people belonged to the Resistance as claim they did), but they have never been collected in one place with such remarkable detail and insight. Fenby's most biting criticism is reserved for the rampant corruption in former president Mitterrand's socialist regime, which publicly eschewed the lure of money while privately putting cash in the pockets of its loyal followers. Fenby is especially trenchant when writing about France's blindness to the dark side of its soul that permits the racist politician Jean-Marie Le Pen to consistently garner between 10% and 20% of the vote in regional elections. Even Fenby's guardedly optimistic conclusion reads like forced cheer: that the "cohabitation"--the term used by the French to describe a regime in which the prime minister and the president belong to different parties--of France's current government could force France's warring factions to cooperate in the salvation of their country. Fenby's fear is that France--in its nostalgia for its cultural glory, in its obsolete insistence on heavy-handed government regulation, in its Gaullist exceptionalism--is ill-prepared to take its place in a unified Europe. Observant and knowledgeable, Fenby tops off his sober tour de France by revealing that, today, more fois gras is made in Eastern Europe than in the Dordogne region that made it famous.