Review: A History of France by John Julius Norwich

Norwich has an affinity with France stemming from early childhood, so no great surprise that this would be something he would eventual write about. And, by his own admission, this would be his last book (sadly his words were prophetic).

Norwich's intended audience is not - as he writes - the academic or historian, but the lay reader - the general public. It is to be read as a general history (he does skip over great chunks with mere paragraphs) but that is his intent - to encapsulate this history of France "from Gaul to de Gaulle" in a mere 400 pages. Norwich achieves what he sets out to do - give the reader a sense of the author's love for a country not of his own.

This was a no-brainer for me - I love Norwich as an author and writer, and French history is something I have an interest in. Whilst for me, it was a quick an easy read, covering a lot of territory that I already knew, this is a teaser, a stepping stone for the reader to embark on their own journey through the annals of history.

He will be sadly missed, by myself and many others. Enjoy.

see also:

- JJ Norwich obit

- JJ Norwich website

- JJ Norwich (wikipedia)

Obit: John Julius Norwich

From The Guardian:

John Julius Norwich, who has died aged 88, called himself a writer and broadcaster. He was really a man of many enthusiasms – for books, music, architecture, paintings – and his great talent was to be able to convey those passions to the public at large, through books, radio broadcasts and in nearly three dozen television documentaries from the BBC, on subjects ranging from the fall of Constantinople, through Napoleon’s final 100 days’ campaign, to Haiti’s revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture.

read more here @ John Julius Norwich and Wikipedia

He was a favourite author of mine, and I have (and have read) a number of his books including:

• The Normans in the South (1967)
• The Kingdom in the Sun (1970)
• A History of Venice: The Rise to Empire (1977)
• A History of Byzantium: The Early Centuries (1988); The Apogee (1991); The Decline & Fall (1995)
• A Short History of Byzantium (1997)
• Paradise of Cities: Venice in the Nineteenth Century (2003)
• The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean (2006)
• The Popes: A History, (March 2011)
• Sicily: A Short History 2015
• Four Princes (2016)
• A History of France ( due to be released Oct 2018)