The Great Plague is one of the most compelling events in human history, even more so now, when the notion of plague—be it animal or human—has never loomed larger as a contemporary public concern It's a brilliant book, yes perhaps at the expense of the French, but more than this it is a love letter to both cultures and the sometimes healthy, sometimes unhealthy, rivalry between the two. I can’t begin to count how many times I’d read something and go google to find out more. I’ve been deep in rabbit holes daily. Harold didn’t need to hire expensive lawyers to dream up a credible defence, though – what hostage is going to refuse to take an oath to a man who is holding him hostage? And what jurisdiction did this Norman foreigner have in England?”

William Faulkner was talking about the Southern USA when he said that “the past is never dead. In fact, it’s not even past.” But exactly the same thing can be said about the French and the all English-speakers – no matter what we try to do in the present, the past will always march up and slap us in the face. Philippe also brought along musicians - mainly trumpeters and drummers - to scare the enemy. Even then, French music was known to terrify the English.” That's preposterous! Churchill never liked de Gaulle (and vice versa)! The only truth is that the Americans wanted to bypass the Général and to establish an Allied (read: "all-American") government in France, but as of Churchill, better read this Associated Press summary: «It’s no secret Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle didn’t like each other. But documents released Tuesday reveal just how deep their antipathy ran with Britain’s prime minister at one point musing about eliminating the French general as a political force. ... Several of the documents indicate that Churchill wanted to withdraw Britain’s support for the man who later became France’s president. ... Churchill, who was in Washington, exchanged memos and telegrams with his Cabinet in London and is shown to agree with U.S. fears that de Gaulle was "too dictatorial" and an Anglophobe. The French leader "hates England and has left a trail of Anglophobia behind him everywhere," Churchill wrote. ... Churchill wrote in a telegram to his deputy, Clement Attlee, and Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden on May 21, 1943. "I ask my colleagues to consider urgently whether we should not now eliminate de Gaulle as a political force." In another memorandum to Eden, Churchill includes intelligence information that he said described de Gaulle as "thoroughly unfriendly both to Britain and to the United States and that while affecting communist sympathies he had fascist tendencies."»

From the Norman (not French) Conquest, to XXX, it is a light-hearted - but impeccably researched - account of all out great-fallings out. Although history is the opinion of whoever decides to interpret certain selected facts a certain way, it’s helpful to know that there are alternative ways to interpret facts so that the French don’t get the glory for many things they think they’re responsible for. As a Brit, that’s very satisfying. To write this, I followed my nose through whole libraries (both online and off), hunting through 1000 years of history to produce a chunky tome that tries to set the record straight about the long tragi-comedy of relations between the French and all us English-speakers. Granted, this is more of a fun book than a history reference, and the writer isn't outright hostile to the French and simply retold the facts; but in a biased manner. This is a great introduction to anybody wanting to understand the peculiar relationship between two countries separated by a 30 mile stretch of water and 1000 years of colourful history.

This is not just a book filled with subtle humour and facts galore, it is a veritable history lesson. Despite the title, it is not an anti-French manifesto, far from it. As well as plenty of passage highlighting reasons to love the French, it reminds us of the many things the world has to thank France for. That said, it also takes time to debunk some myths that the French love to trot out. The fact that le croissant was a Belgian invention is particularly irksome to my French friends. Like everyone else, I always suspected that the mistrust had something to do with 1066, Agincourt, Waterloo and all that, but I felt that most of our battles were too far in the past to have much effect on the present. So I decided to delve into that past and come up with a more accurate answer. This was absolutely hilarious, I couldn’t stop laughing at parts. It was written in a conversational manner and I rather liked that. It did make me question some of the facts, but I did my own research on the facts I questioned, and they were all right. The humorous aspect of the book also gave it a very irreverent tone, which didn't bother me except that it too often derailed in salacious gossipy remarks that were often NOT entirely true or based in fact. And, of course, there's nothing humorous about goodness or kindness or noble deeds, so you will finish the book thinking there hasn't been a single moment of true courage or goodness or self sacrifice in a thousand years of history.History is often looked upon as "boring" or "too-serious" and this is true in many cases, but as deep as humor has roots inside the humanity, a funny author can makes wonders.