The Hollow Years: France in the 1930s

A montage of glimpses into France between the World Wars. A book of this short length, on such a subject, simply cannot cover it to any detail, no matter how skilfully written. Though the latter it certainly is, given the author's expertise as a writer and a historian.The chapters are disconnected. There is little flow between one and the next. Which means that you can read them in any order, with little narrative loss. Within a chapter, we see sharp anecdotes, that highlight the subject, be it the culture/s, migrants, religion or whatever. Some of these are bloody hilarious. Like, did you know that in some French cities, people were emptying slop buckets into the streets till the 1950s? Yuk! :-( Wow! That regular bathing was rare, and widely considered unhealthy? Some attitudes, like the suspicion of the emanations of power lines, echo today's views in France and elsewhere in Europe, about genetically modified foods. Quite a nice read.

As a great fan of Weber, particularly his social histories of turn-of-the-century France, I bought this book with the highest expectations. There are endless lessons to be drawn from France's disastrous policies and psychological conditions in the 1920s and 1930s. Striking and poignant are the contrasts both with pre-1914 France and with the nation's confident development after World War Two. Weber certainly captures much of this, and you can't quarrel with the thrust of his analysis. He is also a very elegant writer. Newcomers to this period of French history will therefore greatly enjoy his book. For those with deeper prior knowledge of inter-war France, the book may be a tad disappointing because so much of the detail is familiar and available elsewhere. Nevertheless, well worth reading.