num_pages: 454
description: While Gustave Eiffel was changing the skyline of Paris large parts of France were still terra incognita. Even in the age of railways and newspapers France was a land of ancient tribal divisions prehistoric communication networks and pre-Christian beliefs. French itself was a minority language.Graham Robb describes that unknown world in arresting narrative detail. He recounts the epic journeys of mapmakers scientists soldiers administrators and intrepid tourists of itinerant workers pilgrims and herdsmen with their millions of migratory domestic animals. We learn how France was explored charted and colonized and how the imperial influence of Paris was gradually extended throughout a kingdom of isolated towns and villages.The Discovery of France explains how the modern nation came to be and how poorly understood that nation still is today. Above all it shows how much of Francepast and presentremains to be discovered.
language: English
title: The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War
publisher: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.