Rating: 
Summary: Detailed and insightful
Review: This book is by two Canadian journalists who spent two years in France studying its economic and social life. They take on an ambitious task -- to explain just how France is, from its most fundamental social structures to the day-to-day details of life, and to show how the deep structurs and the everyday are related. For example, take their section about dog poop on the streets of Paris. Although there are fines for not cleaning up after your dog, the dog-owners don't see it as their responsibility to pick it up, because the State should do it. The police don't enforce the fines, because they're the national police and have more important things to do. And Paris doesn't have a local police force because in the past local police forces have been power bases which have been used to threaten the state. In three steps we've gone from a small, personal observation to an insight into how and why France is organized. The book is full of this kind of illuminating shift in perspective.Unlike a previous reviewer, I didn't think this book was full of shots at the States. The writers come from an Anglo-Saxon country and it shows -- they're frequently frustrated at the deliberate inefficiencies and lack of personal responsibility in French society. You feel them wishing that things were brisker, looser, easier to change, more clear-cut, more sensible, even as they describe their pleasure in the idiosyncrasies. But they raise the interesting question: is the Anglo-Saxon way, where it's easier to hire and fire, actually more efficient overall? For example, French unemployment is notoriously high -- 9.5% as I write -- but, as the authors point out, the difficulty of hiring means that almost all jobs in France are well-paid, full-time jobs. Contrast this to the US, where large numbers of low-paid McJobs keep the unemployment rate low but don't necessarily provide a decent living wage. Given this, are France's market inefficiencies necessarily a bad thing?
Rating: 
Summary: A much needed antidote to a deadly epidemic of francophobia
Review: This book offers a supremely well-balanced examination and analysis of France and the French, something very much needed with the paranoiac hysteria polluting the air waves, print and cyber space regarding the country that helped America win its freedom from Britain. Do NOT think because of M. Benoit's name that he is just defending his own. M. Benoit is French-Canadian, coming from a people who have long ago severed their ties with the Continent. French-Canadians were well aware that France was occupied during the Second World War. Yet, although some brave individuals volunteered (including some in Britain's high-risk SOE missions to France and the Far East), a majority opposed the war, and one was even executed for refusing to don the King's uniform. M. Benoit's analysis, therefore, is as objective as that of Watson and Crick discovering DNA. As such, this analysis does much to counter and expose the bacillus of francophobia currently infecting millions in North America. In particular, "60 Million Frenchmen" does much to undo the popular mythologies spawned by Paul Webster's "Petain's Crime" and Michael Curtis' "Verdict on Vichy", both of which are so virulently francophobic that they would be immediately branded as racist had they targetted any other group. M. Benoit and Ms. Barlow point out, as Webster and Curtis attempt to downplay and hide, that 75% of Jews residing in France were saved by Frenchmen. What is most curious about the Webster and Curtis books is how they attack the late Francois Mitterand for his minor involvement in Vichy, while they sing resounding hallelujahs about Jacques Chirac. M. Mitterand, for all his sins, actually declared war on Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War. Chirac, by contrast, is known to have been a personal friend of Saddam since the 1970's. It says much about Webster and Curtis that they choose to attack people either long or recently dead, or, at best, in senile old age, for alleged collaboration with "anti-Semitism", while they chose to deify a man who, until a month ago, was very actively collaborating with one of the world's most virulent LIVING anti-Semites! So, forget Paxton, Rousso, Webster and Curtis. If you want the TRUE story of France, read "60 Million Frenchmen" and Julian Jackson's "France; The Dark Years 1940-44"!!!
Rating:
Summary: Journalism that reads like fiction
Review: This is a rare breed in the world of nonfiction: a factual book you'll actually read through to the end.
In a lively style punctuated with anecdote, authors Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoit Nadeau trace how the society and politics of France have evolved over the centuries. The result? We start to understand there is a distinct French character and that the current showdown between France and the English-speaking world is not resistance for its own sake, but the result of the real, historic differences that exist.
This book is for anyone who has ever lived in France, visited or tried to do business with the French. It will illuminate some of the mysteries and answer questions you didn't know to ask.
Rating: 
Summary: what does wrong mean?
Review: This is an excellent book overall for the many reasons other reviewers have already covered. However, I'd like to pick a bit at the conclusions, starting with the title. Read the book, then ask yourself what you personally actually want, and consider important. What are yuor values? Do you really want the French package? Bits of obviously, but not more. I'm a mixed-race European, I have a vacation apartment in France, speak the language well and enjoy the country very much, but I don't feel that I want what they want or have, and certainly wouldn't want to be what they are. Indeed, I heartily despise many of their values - reviewer J. Janus, ask yourself why the French helped the Americans in the war of independence? It might have been republican cameraderie, but wouldn't the chance to have a swipe at a long-term rival / enemy be more in keeping? Especially as you are bang on about their supporting their uncompetitive industries by selling high tech at high prices to despotic regimes which more humane (civilised?) countries refuse to supply. I also despise their obsessive hero-worship, weird nationalist inferiority/superiority complexes, etc. Reading this book reminded me of the many reasons that I love and hate the French. As well as all the things I don't like, certainly I'm jealous of their fantastic country; one of the reasons their inefficient system survives is their effortless and abundant agriculture, tourism, etc - and in a way I secretly admire their balls at simply taking the idiot Germans/EU for a ride in terms of subsidising French delusions of economic and political grandeur. They can be extremely charming and have a marvellous sense of style: I think this comes in part from the one thing that makes them so maddeningly difficult to pigeon-hole; they are the only country that mixes being both northern and southern. (Culturally, I do not consider Italy a single country, it is northern in the north and southern in the south, not mixed.) Enjoy the book, but form your own conclusions!
Rating:
Summary: An American Ethnographer in Paris
Review: Two American Ethnographers spent a year in France, being paid to study globalization's effect on France. They quickly realized that their American societal mores an incorrect context in which to do this evaluation. Instead, they describe the primary social and societal context which the French operate under.
This book is a wonderful tool for Americans to understand various French systems and customs. My only complaint is that it focuses almost exclusively on differences and relationships between the US and France.
Also, the title is a bit misleading as to the content of the book. The book, rightfully, is pretty value-neutral. It discusses differences between the French and Americans, without assigning right or wrong.
Rating:
Summary: Amateur and Error Prone
Review: Two writers/journalists take off to France and restyle themselves as amateur ethnographers, ready to explain and dissect the idiosyncracies of the French. A lively, personal style and wealth of amusing anecdotes make this an easy read.
Unfortunately there are many errors. Simple facts of name, date, or practice are confused or stunningly incorrect. Armchair anthropology abounds, and multi-faceted institutions, behaviours and histories are repeatedly essentialized into single, pale reflections. The book also suffers mistakes in language and consistency which the editor should've caught. Finally, although it reads as fresh and engaging, at root this is the same information one finds in all the other 'culture clash' manuals, albeit with superior presentation.
The bottom line? Well-written; interesting; incorrect. Perhaps useful as a gentle introduction to French culture, but follow it up with selections from more reliable sources.
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