The French Exception: France - Still So Special? - Softcover

Jack, Andrew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1861972377 ISBN 13: 9781861972378

Publisher: Profile Books, 2000

Synopsis

Unusual book

About this title

Review

What is it about the French that both fascinates and infuriates? Their characteristics are a constant contradiction, a welcoming hospitalité often living hugger-mugger with a deprecating hauter. Andrew Jack's book goes a long way to unravelling the mystery of what makes the French not only feel different but act differently from the rest of us. Their proud and protective love of their language as it is encircled by the ever-increasing world use of English, as Jack shows, is the key to understanding their cultural complexities. He explores the elitist ethic that envelops and often encrusts the French way of life, its centralised state apparatus, struggling to change, at one and the same time stimulating and stifling economic, educational and entrepreneurial advancement. When individual effort breaks through, however, as it often does, as this book shows, it often grabs the headlines, turning heretics into heroes, sometimes, even, earning a place at the Prime Minister's dining table. Even handed and never heavy-footed, as Jack patrols the corridors of power he offers up a not unkindly but illuminating and compelling critique of l'exception francais.--Michael Hatfield

Review

"...that tension between a vast confidence in the cultural achievements of the past and an equal uncertainty about the future. Andrew Jack's book is an excellent summary of the condition francaise." -- Time Out, 21 July 1999

"The French Exception comes as a happy surprise. We are spared the strange plumbers and eccentric macons who have pursued us since the success of Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence . Here we are given, instead, answers to those questions real human beings ask as they potter around France. How does it actually work? How is it governed? Who runs the country?" -- Carmen Callil, The Daily Telegraph, 10 July 1999

"An enjoyable, informative read for anyone who does business with France or holidays there." -- Director, October 1999

"Analysing its contradictions, its culture of political corruption, extremism and economic blockages, Jack takes a fresh, and sometimes controversial, view of France and its relationship to the world." -- Voyager, September 1999

"France has more stereotypes than perhaps any other European country. But surely France stands alone in the diversity of its public conception? A melting pot of innovators and bureaucrats, artists and extremists. As insightful and interesting book as any you can find on this subject, Jack's stance is original, detailed and balanced. His approach is often controversial and always expressed with considerable literary expertise." -- Eurobusiness, September 1999

"Jack has written an excellent overview of French society today." -- Time Out, 21 July 1999

"Pack Jack for French without tears." -- Literary Review, July 1999

"This is a fascinating book that sets out to dispel many myths about the French and succeeds in giving us an original slant on contemporary France with fresh new insights." -- What's on in London, 21 July 1999

About this edition

• Publisher: Profile Books
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1861972377
• ISBN 13: 9781861972378
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304