1000 Years of Annoying the French - Softcover

Clarke, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0552779938 ISBN 13: 9780552779937

Publisher: Black Swan, 2015

Synopsis

NEW UPDATED EDITION

Was the Battle of Hastings a French victory?
Non! William the Conqueror was Norman and hated the French.

Were the Brits really responsible for the death of Joan of Arc?
Non! The French sentenced her to death for wearing trousers.

Did the French write "God Save the Queen"?
Non! But that's what they claim.

Ten centuries' worth of French historical 'facts' bite the dust as Stephen Clarke looks at what has really been going on since 1066 ...

Featuring new annoyances – both historical and recent – inflicted on the French, including Napoleon's "banned" chamber pot, Louis XIV's painful operation, Anglo-French jibes during the 2012 London Olympics, French niggles about William and Kate's royal wedding, and much more ...

About this title

Review:

"Tremendously entertaining" (The Sunday Times)

"Relentlessly and energetically rude about almost every aspect of French history and culture" (Mail on Sunday)

"Anyone who's ever encountered a snooty Parisian waiter or found themselves driving on the Boulevard Peripherique during August will enjoy this book" (Daily Mail)

From the Publisher:

This is a wonderfully entertaining piece of `alternative' history; well, I say `piece' - it is of course 1000 years worth of history, all of it true and all of it mega-interesting, most of which won't be available in more conventional history books. My favourite chapters? The Hundred Years War (chapter three) which the author says was `120 years of terror inflicted on French civilians by out-of-control English bandits' (our sympathies are with the bandits, of course); the demise of poor Joan of Arc (chapter four), betrayed by the French for making the disastrous fashion mistake of wearing trousers at her trial; and the accounts of French exploration, all of which were uniformly catastrophic. See, for example, chapter seven (French Canada, or How To Lose a Colony); and chapter fourteen (India and Tahiti: France Gets Lost in Paradise). Yes, it's true that when the 17th century French explorer La Salle was on the point of naming the vast areas surrounding the Mississippi in the Deep South of America, as well as the fertile pastures of what is now Illinois as important centres of French colonization, Louis XIV declared that La Salle's efforts were `utterly pointless, and similar expeditions should be prevented'. Sacre Bleu! Enjoy ...

About this edition

• Publisher: Black Swan
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0552779938
• ISBN 13: 9780552779937
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 768