This is a guide to France intended for the traveller who wants to get to know French people as individuals, for the negotiating businessman and for students who wishes to discover in-depth aspects of their lives. It looks at what makes up the national character of France.

THEODORE ZELDIN is a Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford. His two-volume history,France 1848-1945 (1973,1977)received international acclaim:The Timescalled it "brilliant, original, enter- taining and inexhaustible";Paris Matchsaid that is was "the most perspicacious, the most deeply researched, the liveliest and the most enthralling panorama of French passions." His other books include the novelHappiness(1988). Theodore Zeldin has been awarded the Wolfson Prize and figures onMagazine Litteraire'slist of the hundreds most important thinkers in the world today.

An eye-opening, amusing, and immensely readable guide to a nation themselves " sure to please anyone who has ever been inspired, exasperated, amused or entranced by the French.