Book 16 A Traveller's History of France * 1/2 by Robert Cole

This is the 8th printing --- and still the book is a mess, from the font choice, to the headings, to the copy editing, which fails to fix even the weakest and commonly acknowledged writing and style issues.   Worse, the books takes fascinating material, and turns it into lifeless recitation.


The author is an American, which surprisingly does not seem to affect the slant of the writing, although after reading Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong, I long for an opinion here and there.   The best we get is the odd wry, forecasting, structurally twisted sentence.


The narrative gets interesting only in the lead up to the Napoleonic era and from there on is quite riveting.


There are a number of deadening appendices that could be updated.