William Stearns Davis, a history professor at the University of Minnesota, recounts the most important events in France's 2,000-year history, from the ancient Gauls to the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. This book is concise and densely packed with information, providing an overview of the country's many centuries of history. becomes a fascinating excursion into the times of antiquity and the Middle Ages, the reigns of Henry IV and Louis XIII, the reign of Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIV with the ideas of enlightenment and the greatest writers and scientists of then France. The revolution of the late 18th century, the proclamation of the republic, Napoleon's empire, the Bourbon Restoration, the monarchy of Louis Philippe, the Second Empire of Napoleon III, the republic again and the First World War... The author does not always manage to maintain the impartiality that is usually required of a historian, but this only adds book of interest, attracting readers who study or are interested in the history of France and Western Europe in general.