A History of France from the Earliest Times to the Treaty of Versailles Illustrated eBook William Stearns Davis
Download As PDF : A History of France from the Earliest Times to the Treaty of Versailles Illustrated eBook William Stearns Davis 
This book was originally intended for members of the American army who naturally would desire to know something of the past of the great French nation on whose soil they expected to do battle for Liberty. The happy but abrupt close of the war vitiated this purpose, but the volume was continued and was extended on a somewhat more ambitious scale to assist in making intelligent Americans in general acquainted with the history of a country with which we have established an ever-deepening friendship...
A History of France from the Earliest Times to the Treaty of Versailles Illustrated eBook William Stearns Davis
This book seems to have begun as an introduction to French history for Americans participating in the first world war. By the time of its publication in 1919, however, the war was over. The author does a good job of presenting the essentials of French history to a reader like me, who has a fragmented idea of some major events in French history, but needs to connect the dots. Important events like the Hundred Years' War, the revolution of 1789, the defeat of 1871, and personalities like Phillipe Auguste, Louis IX, Henri IV, Louis XIV, Napoleon are covered in sufficient detail and fitted well into the overall context. The style is easy to read and holds the reader's interest. The coverage of events close to publication, like the Third Republic and the First World War is not as objective and unbiased as the rest of the book. The author presents France's role in the great war as more glorious than the perception today. Overall, I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in a general introduction to the history of this interesting and important nation.Product details
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A History of France from the Earliest Times to the Treaty of Versailles Illustrated eBook William Stearns Davis Reviews
It was only when I got to the end that I realised it was written in 1919. Gives a good balance of French history for the novice. It avoids the already well explored aspects of French history such as Trafalgar, Waterloo, , Austerlitz, but concentrates on what was happening behind the scenes and the politics. Unfortunately where it stop is a high point of French history and it didn't go into the low point of 1939-40 and the rapid change in French outlook between the wars. Well worth a read for those who have been brought up on Anglo history
I'd been reading my way through editions of Macaulay, Hume, Bede, and had read more contemporary Histories of England and the Isles. I became increasingly uncomfortable with how little I knew of French history given the almost constant interaction between the countries.
I'd most recently read de Toqueville's "The Old Regime and the Revolution" which I recommend highly, and on his recommendation, read Andrew Young's book covering his tours of France in the period just before and during the Revolution of 1789. Again, i had no overall understanding of the history of the place nor much understanding of what "The Estates" meant and how they had been related to each other over the years.
I bought Davis' book, found it wonderfully readable, and read it. To check his views on Colbert, I read the entry for him in a 1929 Brittanica (don't ask) and found that there might be more than Davis' view on the effects of the remarkable Colbert.
I do wish that Michelet's history was available on , that I might get more detail on the events and people discussed in Davis' really excellent book.
Trace the emergence of the French people. Watch how the post-Roman chaos encouraged the rise of the nobility at the expense of the serfs. Marvel at how long this society of such privilege lasted. Follow the stirrings of "reform" as they morph into revolution and The Terror. And, if you want to comprehend the causes of World War I, you cannot do so without knowledge of how the French arrived at the place of provoking their German cousins across the fabled Rhine. Lots of detail along the way--perhaps more than you want.
I ordered this book to read in parallel with attempting to read Les Miserables in the original French version, to actually follow the context of the historical background to the story. It turned out to be a very readable and fairly concise history written specifically for English-speakers who haven't gone through the French educational system and therefore are not presupposed to know a lot of the background and names and characters already. A very good quick source of infornation about France and her history.
A History of France from the Earliest Times to the Treaty of Versailles was originally written for servicemen being deployed to France to fight in World War I who might want to know something of the history of the country. The war ended before the project was completed, so William Sterns Davis took the opportunity to update and expand the book and make it available to the members of the general public to introduce them to the history of the country we had been fighting alongside. I think this book serves as an admirable introduction to the history of France from the Roman conquest of Gaul down through the medieval period, the Revolution, Napoleon and the just concluded war. Davis does tend to spend more time on the (to him) recent history of France in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries at the expense of earlier centuries, but I ought not to complain. There is still plenty of material on earlier periods and I do not get the impression, as I often do of history books that the author is trying to hurry through the early history of his subject.
This book was written in 1919, well before the age of political correctness and post-modern moral relativism and the tone of Davis's writing shows it. He does not hesitate to call groups of people barbarians or make moral judgments on the personal lives of kings. I personally find this sort of honesty refreshing, though it can be somewhat jarring, especially in the last two chapters. While discussing France's recovery from the disaster of the Franco-Prussian War, Davis expounds on France's acquisition of a colonial empire in Africa and Indo-China stressing the great improvements French administration made in the lives of the people of the colonies. That may be, but no one asked of the natives of the colonies wished to be ruled by France.
The chapter on World War I reads like allied propaganda with France defending civilization against the Teutons bent on conquering the world. The Germans are clearly the bad guys throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Treaty of Versailles is represented as just and reasonable with the reparations necessary to repair the damage the Germans did to the French territory they occupied. Perhaps, but I wonder if Davis lived to see the troubles the more onerous provisions of that treaty caused to Europe and France.
In general, the book is strongly pro-France and the author seems to have a real affection for the French people. Anyone who wants a good general overview of French history will find what he is looking for here.
This book seems to have begun as an introduction to French history for Americans participating in the first world war. By the time of its publication in 1919, however, the war was over. The author does a good job of presenting the essentials of French history to a reader like me, who has a fragmented idea of some major events in French history, but needs to connect the dots. Important events like the Hundred Years' War, the revolution of 1789, the defeat of 1871, and personalities like Phillipe Auguste, Louis IX, Henri IV, Louis XIV, Napoleon are covered in sufficient detail and fitted well into the overall context. The style is easy to read and holds the reader's interest. The coverage of events close to publication, like the Third Republic and the First World War is not as objective and unbiased as the rest of the book. The author presents France's role in the great war as more glorious than the perception today. Overall, I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in a general introduction to the history of this interesting and important nation.
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