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31 reviews for:
Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong: Why We Love France, But Not the French
Jean Nadeau, Julie Barlow
3.61 AVERAGE
31 reviews for:
Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong: Why We Love France, But Not the French
Jean Nadeau, Julie Barlow
3.61 AVERAGE
informative
reflective
very good book regarding french society, culture, and history. first 2/3 of book is v interesting, latter half talks about economic policy and nonprofits which isn’t as interesting. would recommend if you want to learn more about what makes the french so inherently french!
A super interesting read—I wish there were an updated version with the past 15 years, too!
I felt like it could have been slimmed down, but like I said, it was still an interesting read.
I felt like it could have been slimmed down, but like I said, it was still an interesting read.
The cartoon-like cover and quirky title made me think this would be a tongue-in-cheek North American viewpoint on Frenchisms, which put me off reading this for quite some time. Happily, I was mistaken and it turned out to be a wealth of information about French politics, culture, and society.
Je comptais lire ce pavé, en me disant qu'en tant qu'étrangère vivant en France, j'aurais sûrement les mêmes points de vue que ce couple de journalistes en débarquant dans l'Hexagone. Ils font la comparaison entre le modèle français et le modèle nord-américain (États-Unis et Canada), montrant clairement les paradoxes français. Leur question de base était: what makes the French so different?
Le plus j'avance dans ma lecture, le plus je me pose des questions.
L'écriture de Jean-Benoît Nadeau et Julie Barlow est fluide avec des touches d'humour. Et c'est incroyable le nombre de choses qu'on apprend!
Essai sur le modèle français, ce livre est aussi un bijou d'histoire de la France, comme jamais décortiquée par l'Éducation nationale.
Avec ce livre, on voit la France avec un autre regard et on comprend beaucoup de choses qui ne sont pas explicites aujourd'hui et qu'on ne pouvait pas avoir découvert autrement si ce n'était par les recherches minutieuses.
À lire par les étrangers débarquant en France, et surtout surtout, par les Français eux-mêmes! ;)
Le plus j'avance dans ma lecture, le plus je me pose des questions.
L'écriture de Jean-Benoît Nadeau et Julie Barlow est fluide avec des touches d'humour. Et c'est incroyable le nombre de choses qu'on apprend!
Essai sur le modèle français, ce livre est aussi un bijou d'histoire de la France, comme jamais décortiquée par l'Éducation nationale.
Avec ce livre, on voit la France avec un autre regard et on comprend beaucoup de choses qui ne sont pas explicites aujourd'hui et qu'on ne pouvait pas avoir découvert autrement si ce n'était par les recherches minutieuses.
À lire par les étrangers débarquant en France, et surtout surtout, par les Français eux-mêmes! ;)
This is a light, humorous ethnography of the French, from an American/Canadian point of view. Reading this before I studied abroad in France helped me SO MUCH! I'm fairly certain that I made a lot fewer cultural blunders than I would have without reading this book. I highly recommend it to anyone planning a trip to France.
True story: I love France. And sometimes really can't stand the French. Thankfully, the authors of this book kinda feel the same way. This book is a wonderful dissection of why the French are who they are and why we love them and are confused by them on a regular basis. The authors have done an excellent job of getting at the heart of what makes French government, culture and economics tick and really pinpoints the differences between France and other countries. I would have liked more comparison's to the United States, but the authors are Canadians, so hey, it is what it is. They were really able to put feelings I've had for years into complete thoughts and answer questions that I've probably been asking myself since I was a kid. I highly recommend this for anyone interested in French culture and what makes them tick.
Fascinating. I have to say, on more that one occasion while I was reading the first section of the book (on what they authors think are the salient features of the French national character), I found myself thinking that the descriptions of the French seemed mighty familiar even though I'm not French. Several times when they characterized North Americans (in contrast), I found myself thinking "Yes, generally, but not New Yorkers." So maybe New Yorkers have more in common with the French than they do with other Americans - in some respects at least. ;-) I guess at some point I need to travel to France to see for myself.
I think my biggest issue with the book was not the writing style, which I quite liked and kept me reading, but it was the authors take on 'the French' as some sort of historical, cultural monstrosity without the nuance I would have liked. Ire grew at perhaps the fifth time of 'the French are ... while [insert usually Americans or British] are' and then a following contrast which was sorely lacking. It not only took the French as some behemoth of unquestionable uniformity, but also any culture they were compared to. I'm not saying anything said is accurate or inaccurate for 'the French' as a whole, but at least in the case of 'while the Americans' had me constantly thinking that either that isn't really the case now (granted the book is not from 2023 or even close) or was too general even if semi-accurate.
I have lived in other countries, albeit not France and I couldn't help feeling that it would maybe have been more accurate to look more narrowly at the particular local they were discussing a bit more than just constantly shoving everyone's opinion into a paradigm of FRENCH.
Like, there's fully a disclaimer near the beginning that their are internal cultures only to have everyone still be umbrellaed under French without much call back to that.
Got annoying and I feel like nuance is lost.
I have lived in other countries, albeit not France and I couldn't help feeling that it would maybe have been more accurate to look more narrowly at the particular local they were discussing a bit more than just constantly shoving everyone's opinion into a paradigm of FRENCH.
Like, there's fully a disclaimer near the beginning that their are internal cultures only to have everyone still be umbrellaed under French without much call back to that.
Got annoying and I feel like nuance is lost.
After spending more than 1/3 of my life with the French....I was happy to have some parts of the French culture explained to outsiders. Even better....no insults, or generalizations, but explanations.