Best of Enemies

Více o knize

"Few neighbouring countries have had a relationship as long, as eventful and as fruitful as the English and the French. For nine centuries they fought each other for the overlordship of western Europe or for the lion's share of the world's colonial spoils. But there have been times when they have loved as immoderately as they have hated. Periodically, the well-to-do or the artistically creative have found the fashions or the culture on the other side of the Channel greatly superior to their own - and have been roundly derided by home-based satirists for their pains."--BOOK JACKET. "In this study, which spans the centuries between the Norman Conquest and the opening of the Channel Tunnel, Robert Gibson describes the causes and the course of the many wars and analyses their consequences. He follows the fortunes of such historical personages as the Black Prince, Henry V, Joan of Arc, Marlborough, Napoleon, Churchill and de Gaulle, as well as such mythical figures as John Bull and Marianne; he explains how and why the English have consistently been branded as perfidious and the French as immoral; and he argues that even after the signing of the Entente Cordiale in 1904, and despite the fact that they fought ostensibly as Allies in two World Wars, each country still echoes to the sound of the battles they fought against one another long ago."--Jacket