{"id":1072,"date":"2021-01-14T10:35:06","date_gmt":"2021-01-14T10:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/?p=1072"},"modified":"2021-01-27T17:35:28","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T17:35:28","slug":"the-discovery-of-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/bookshelf\/the-discovery-of-france\/","title":{"rendered":"The Discovery of France"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Graham Robb (Picador, 2008)<\/p>\n<p>Recommended by <a href=\"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/profiles\/andrew-hodgson\/\">Andrew Hodgson\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Robb offers a magnificent description of France as a massive patchwork of places. The \u2018discovery\u2019 is both the author\u2019s uncovering of the intricate jumble of tribes, tongues, and traditions that make up France\u2019s history, and the country\u2019s attempt to forge a unified identity from them. The book is written with an ironic care for the way the spirit of place shapes and finds expression in the everyday existence of its people. One of the most attractive passages involves Robb pausing over the \u2018large and luckless\u2019 contingent of ordinary lives strung out among the nation\u2019s gradual incline to modernity, who spent the best part of their years \u2018cocooned in idleness\u2019 from the gloom and cold of winter, attempting to make life as uncomplicated as possible.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1073\" src=\"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/01\/index.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"184\" height=\"274\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Graham Robb <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":1073,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[61,38],"class_list":{"0":"post-1072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-bookshelf","8":"tag-national-identity","9":"tag-space-and-place","11":"with-featured-image"},"featured_image_urls_v2":{"full":["https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/01\/index-e1610622274652.jpg",184,194,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/01\/index-e1610622274652.jpg",184,194,false],"medium":["https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/01\/index-e1610622274652.jpg",184,194,false],"medium_large":["https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/01\/index-e1610622274652.jpg",184,194,false],"large":["https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/01\/index-e1610622274652.jpg",184,194,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/01\/index-e1610622274652.jpg",184,194,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/01\/index-e1610622274652.jpg",184,194,false],"ab-block-post-grid-landscape":["https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/01\/index-e1610622274652.jpg",184,194,false],"ab-block-post-grid-square":["https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/01\/index-e1610622274652.jpg",184,194,false],"atomic-blocks-featured-image":["https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/01\/index-e1610622274652.jpg",184,194,false],"atomic-blocks-featured-image-wide":["https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/01\/index-e1610622274652.jpg",184,194,false],"atomic-blocks-logo":["https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/01\/index-e1610622274652.jpg",184,194,false]},"post_excerpt_stackable_v2":"<p>Graham Robb <\/p>\n","category_list_v2":"<a href=\"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/category\/bookshelf\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Bookshelf<\/a>","author_info_v2":{"name":"Jessica Fay","url":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/author\/fayj\/"},"comments_num_v2":"0 comments","featured_image_src":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/01\/index-e1610622274652.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/01\/index-e1610622274652.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Jessica Fay","author_link":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/author\/fayj\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1072"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1090,"href":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072\/revisions\/1090"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/artsofplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}