Book That Reframes French History Causing a Stir

A history of France, newly available in English, has shocked some readers by what it omits, as much as what it includes. Patrick Boucheron, a French specialist of medieval Italian history, organized the project after the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. These shook a country already riven by xenophobia and anti-Semitism after the kidnapping and murder of Ilan Halimi, a young Frenchman of Moroccan Jewish ancestry in 2006, and related events. Amidst the turmoil four years ago, right-wing French presidential candidates called for a return to a sense of national identity through a teaching curriculum reflecting an insular France. As a counter-offensive, Boucheron asked dozens of historians employed by elite Paris institutions to produce brief essays arranged in chronological order. As the publisher explains, the book dynamically “conceives of France not as a fixed, rooted entity, but instead as a place and an idea in flux, moving beyond all borders and frontiers, shaped by exchanges and mixtures.” So interactions within the country itself and outside are offered, as when ambassadors from Persia or Siam appear at a French royal reception, or when Chile's President Salvador Allende, a hero for the Gallic left wing, was overthrown in 1973; all are highlighted as part of the nation's history.