Items related to 1000 Years of Annoying the French

1000 Years of Annoying the French - Softcover

Clarke, Stephen

 
9780593062739: 1000 Years of Annoying the French
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593062736 ISBN 13: 9780593062739
Publisher: Bantam Press, 2010

Synopsis

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. Was the guillotine a French invention? Non! It was invented in Yorkshire. Ten centuries' worth of French historical 'facts' bite the dust as Stephen Clarke looks at what has really been going on since 1066 ...

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author

Ten centuries of French historical 'facts' bite the dust in Stephen Clarke's Sunday Times Top Five Bestseller.

From the Back Cover

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.

Was the guillotine a French invention?
Non! It was invented in Yorkshire.

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

From the Inside Flap

The English Channel may be only twenty miles wide, but it's a thousand years deep.

Stephen Clarke takes a penetrating look into those murky depths, guiding us through all the times when Britain and France have been at war - or at least glowering at each other across what we Brits provocatively call the English Channel.

Along the way he also explodes a few myths that French historians have been trying to pass off as as 'la vérité', as he proves that the French did not invent the baguette, or the croissant, or even the guillotine, and would have taken the bubbles out of bubbly if the Brits hadn't created a fashion for fizzy champagne.

Starting with the Norman (not French) Conquest and going right up to the supposedly more peaceful present, when a state visit by French President Nicolas Sarkozy becomes a series of hilarious historical insults, it is a light-hearted - but impeccably researched - account of all our great fallings-out.

In short, the French are quite right to suspect that the last thousand years have been one long British campaign to infuriate them.

And it's not over yet ...

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
Bantam Press
Publication date
2010
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0593062736
ISBN 13 
9780593062739
Binding
Paperback
Number of pages
440