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The French Mind: 400 Years of Romance, Revolution and Renewal
We are endlessly fascinated by the French. We are fascinated by their way of life, their creativity, sophistication and self-assurance, and even their insistence that they are exceptional. But how did France become the country it is today, and what really sets it apart?
Journalist and historian Peter Watson sets out to answer these questions in The French Mind, a dazzling history of France that takes us from the seventeenth century to the present day through the nation’s most influential thinkers. He opens the doors to the Renaissance salons that were a breeding ground for poets, philosophers and scientists, and tells the forgotten stories of the extraordinary succession of women who ran these institutions, fostering a culture of stylish intellectualism unmatched anywhere else in the world.
It’s a story that takes us into Bohemian cafes and cabarets, into chic Parisian high culture via French philosophies of food, fashion and sex, while growing unrest hastens the bloody birth of a republic. From the 1789 revolution to the country’s occupation by Nazi Germany, Watson argues that a unique series of devastating military defeats helped shape the resilient, proud, innovative character of the French.
This is a history of breathtaking ambition, propelled by the characters Watson brings to vivid life: the writers, revolutionaries and painters who loved, inspired and rivalled one another over four hundred years. It documents the shaping of a nation whose global influence, in art, culture and politics, cannot be overstated.
Journalist and historian Peter Watson sets out to answer these questions in The French Mind, a dazzling history of France that takes us from the seventeenth century to the present day through the nation’s most influential thinkers. He opens the doors to the Renaissance salons that were a breeding ground for poets, philosophers and scientists, and tells the forgotten stories of the extraordinary succession of women who ran these institutions, fostering a culture of stylish intellectualism unmatched anywhere else in the world.
It’s a story that takes us into Bohemian cafes and cabarets, into chic Parisian high culture via French philosophies of food, fashion and sex, while growing unrest hastens the bloody birth of a republic. From the 1789 revolution to the country’s occupation by Nazi Germany, Watson argues that a unique series of devastating military defeats helped shape the resilient, proud, innovative character of the French.
This is a history of breathtaking ambition, propelled by the characters Watson brings to vivid life: the writers, revolutionaries and painters who loved, inspired and rivalled one another over four hundred years. It documents the shaping of a nation whose global influence, in art, culture and politics, cannot be overstated.
845 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 17, 2022
70 people are currently reading
601 people want to read
About the author
Peter Watson
119 books331 followersPeter Watson was educated at the universities of Durham, London and Rome, and was awarded scholarships in Italy and the United States.
After a stint as Deputy Editor of New Society magazine, he was for four years part of the Sunday Times ‘Insight’ team of investigative journalists. He wrote the daily Diary column of the London Times before becoming that paper’s New York correspondent. He returned to London to write a column about the art world for the Observer and then at The Sunday Times.
He has published three exposes in the world of art and antiquities and from 1997 to 2007 was a Research Associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge. He has published twelve books of non-fiction and seven novels, some under the pen name of Mackenzie Ford. He lives in London where his interests include theatre, opera and fishing.
Awards, Etc.
Psychology Prize
Durham University, 1961
Italian Government Music Scholarship
Rome University, 1965
United States Government Bursary “for future world leaders”
To study the psychiatric profession and its links to the administration of justice
Books of the Year
Psychology Today Magazine, 1978, for War on the Mind
Daily Mail, 1990, for Wisdom and Strength
Independent on Sunday, for A Terrible Beauty, 2000
Times Literary Supplement, for Ideas, 2005
Time Magazine, for The Medici Conspiracy, 2006
Queen’s Pardon
Copy from Patrick Meehan after I had written a series of articles which brought about his release from prison after he had been wrongly convicted of murder, 1976.
Gold Dagger – Crime Writers’ Association of Great Britain
For The Caravaggio Conspiracy, 1983
Beacon Award – SAFE Award – Saving Antiquities for Everyone
For The Medici Conspiracy, 2006
US Library Association
The Great Divide.
Emmy Nomination
‘The Caravaggio Conspiracy, 1984.
Best sellers
The Caravaggio Conspiracy
Crusade
Landscape of Lies
Sotheby’s: The Inside Story
Nureyev
Lectures
Peter Watson has lectured at the following venues:
Universities
Cambridge
Berkeley
London
UCLA
Birmingham
Georgia
Georgia
Chicago
Birmingham
Santiago de Chile
York
Madrid
Harvard
Tufts
Military Bases
Fort Bragg
Private Institutions in
Cleveland
Berlin
Chicago
Belfast
Los Angeles
New York
Washington
Boston
Palm Beach
Other venues
Smithsonian Institution
National Museum, Copenhagen
Royal Society of Arts
Rugby School
Royal Library, Copenhagen
Festivals
Edinburgh
Oxford
Dartington
York
After a stint as Deputy Editor of New Society magazine, he was for four years part of the Sunday Times ‘Insight’ team of investigative journalists. He wrote the daily Diary column of the London Times before becoming that paper’s New York correspondent. He returned to London to write a column about the art world for the Observer and then at The Sunday Times.
He has published three exposes in the world of art and antiquities and from 1997 to 2007 was a Research Associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge. He has published twelve books of non-fiction and seven novels, some under the pen name of Mackenzie Ford. He lives in London where his interests include theatre, opera and fishing.
Awards, Etc.
Psychology Prize
Durham University, 1961
Italian Government Music Scholarship
Rome University, 1965
United States Government Bursary “for future world leaders”
To study the psychiatric profession and its links to the administration of justice
Books of the Year
Psychology Today Magazine, 1978, for War on the Mind
Daily Mail, 1990, for Wisdom and Strength
Independent on Sunday, for A Terrible Beauty, 2000
Times Literary Supplement, for Ideas, 2005
Time Magazine, for The Medici Conspiracy, 2006
Queen’s Pardon
Copy from Patrick Meehan after I had written a series of articles which brought about his release from prison after he had been wrongly convicted of murder, 1976.
Gold Dagger – Crime Writers’ Association of Great Britain
For The Caravaggio Conspiracy, 1983
Beacon Award – SAFE Award – Saving Antiquities for Everyone
For The Medici Conspiracy, 2006
US Library Association
The Great Divide.
Emmy Nomination
‘The Caravaggio Conspiracy, 1984.
Best sellers
The Caravaggio Conspiracy
Crusade
Landscape of Lies
Sotheby’s: The Inside Story
Nureyev
Lectures
Peter Watson has lectured at the following venues:
Universities
Cambridge
Berkeley
London
UCLA
Birmingham
Georgia
Georgia
Chicago
Birmingham
Santiago de Chile
York
Madrid
Harvard
Tufts
Military Bases
Fort Bragg
Private Institutions in
Cleveland
Berlin
Chicago
Belfast
Los Angeles
New York
Washington
Boston
Palm Beach
Other venues
Smithsonian Institution
National Museum, Copenhagen
Royal Society of Arts
Rugby School
Royal Library, Copenhagen
Festivals
Edinburgh
Oxford
Dartington
York
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 6, 2022
I confess to having bought this book by mistake and it certainly was not the book I thought it was. Expecting a dry philosophical tome about why they French feel that they posess certain superiorities to other nations, I got a history of the French Literary Salon as an explanation which was neither dry, nor philosophical.
The salons started in the reign of king Louis XIV as a way of avoiding the endless sterility of court protocol. They were places where, gradually, men of letters met with the thinking branches of the upper classes. Many things were discussed, argued about, disputed but always in tones of civility and most were run by women across 400 years of French history. The overwhelming emphasis was on philosophy and literature with the sciences being seen as lesser subjects. Other, less grandiose and more carnal things were also discussed. Gradually, as cultural norms changed these meetings spilled over into restaurants and cafes (the Cafe de Flore and les Deux Magots have brass plaques where sat Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir; the latter has a literary prize for an unkown author after it was decided that the Prix Goncourt had become too reactionary) but, at the centre, the salons remained. The hostesses were all well educated and free thinking, often with a background in family tragedy. They were all formidable.
The centre of the book seems to be the French ability to reinvent itself after major tragedies. The Revolution, Waterloo, the Seven Years War and the First World War are seen as pivotal points, examples of how the French fell back on their literary excellence in the only language in the world capable of expressing what it is to be French, "We may have lost the war, but nobody can write poetry like us"!
This is an interesting viewpoint and not impossible. I once asked a family friend who was an army veteran about the war in Indochina. I knew he had served there. He told me that the war had never happened and then I noticed that there were no commemorative plaques on the war memorials. This changed about a decade later - perhaps this was another example of the French reinventing themselves. Coming from a country where Victory is part and parcel of the way we see ourselves, defeat and loss creating its own narrative seems rather strange. However, this is an intriguing book, extensively researched, well written and (for audible listeners) beautifully narrated.
The salons started in the reign of king Louis XIV as a way of avoiding the endless sterility of court protocol. They were places where, gradually, men of letters met with the thinking branches of the upper classes. Many things were discussed, argued about, disputed but always in tones of civility and most were run by women across 400 years of French history. The overwhelming emphasis was on philosophy and literature with the sciences being seen as lesser subjects. Other, less grandiose and more carnal things were also discussed. Gradually, as cultural norms changed these meetings spilled over into restaurants and cafes (the Cafe de Flore and les Deux Magots have brass plaques where sat Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir; the latter has a literary prize for an unkown author after it was decided that the Prix Goncourt had become too reactionary) but, at the centre, the salons remained. The hostesses were all well educated and free thinking, often with a background in family tragedy. They were all formidable.
The centre of the book seems to be the French ability to reinvent itself after major tragedies. The Revolution, Waterloo, the Seven Years War and the First World War are seen as pivotal points, examples of how the French fell back on their literary excellence in the only language in the world capable of expressing what it is to be French, "We may have lost the war, but nobody can write poetry like us"!
This is an interesting viewpoint and not impossible. I once asked a family friend who was an army veteran about the war in Indochina. I knew he had served there. He told me that the war had never happened and then I noticed that there were no commemorative plaques on the war memorials. This changed about a decade later - perhaps this was another example of the French reinventing themselves. Coming from a country where Victory is part and parcel of the way we see ourselves, defeat and loss creating its own narrative seems rather strange. However, this is an intriguing book, extensively researched, well written and (for audible listeners) beautifully narrated.
April 27, 2023
Basically the conclusion of the book is that the establishment of salons by prominent women where high and low brow matters were discussed is one of the reasons for the unique French intellectual culture came from, it's why they put a lot of stock into not only being well read but also being able to socialise well and being a society person. The book will alternate between sociological explanations for the uniqueness of french culture and then do mini-biographies on important french writers and figures. The elements of sociology and philosophy are the most interesting, at least for me, the book discusses a lot of obscure of french writers which I am not even sure if native french people are aware of, I sometimes lost my interest in the biographical parts since not every writer/thinker is that interesting to read about and my main interest in the book was exploring what makes French culture different from other European cultures.
July 9, 2022
Brilliant survey displaying Watson’s genius for synthesis. I have ben reading his books for 30 years and plan to take on The German Genius later in the year! Highest recommendation.
August 15, 2025
I made it to 64% before finally conceding defeat—perhaps the most poetic and French thing I could have done with this book. After all, there’s a certain elegance in walking away mid-sentence, in letting the story remain unfinished, suspended in that hazy in-between of intrigue and exhaustion. Maybe it’s my ADHD, maybe it’s the book’s relentless density, but in the end, I couldn’t convince myself to push through. And honestly, that unfinished ending feels far more satisfying than the prospect of enduring another 36%.
If you’re going to read this book, you’ll need a high degree of discipline and sustained concentration to make it through its biographical and intellectually dense terrain. Across 700+ pages of small-font text, you’ll encounter a chorus of historical figures—many of whom reappear throughout the narrative—each revealing scandalous and eye-opening details, yet presented in a tone that often feels clinical.
That’s not to say the author’s personality is absent—it does shine through—but the structural and stylistic choices slow the pace of otherwise fascinating lives. If you’re hoping for a philosophical exploration of the French mindset and the subtleties that shape it, this book may not scratch that itch. Its focus is more on meticulous historical presentation than on diving into the intellectual or cultural psyche.
If you’re going to read this book, you’ll need a high degree of discipline and sustained concentration to make it through its biographical and intellectually dense terrain. Across 700+ pages of small-font text, you’ll encounter a chorus of historical figures—many of whom reappear throughout the narrative—each revealing scandalous and eye-opening details, yet presented in a tone that often feels clinical.
That’s not to say the author’s personality is absent—it does shine through—but the structural and stylistic choices slow the pace of otherwise fascinating lives. If you’re hoping for a philosophical exploration of the French mindset and the subtleties that shape it, this book may not scratch that itch. Its focus is more on meticulous historical presentation than on diving into the intellectual or cultural psyche.
January 27, 2024
Man kann sich über einzelne Punkte in Watsons ungeheuer umfassender französischer Kulturgeschichte streiten: Waren etwa die Salons wirklich so bedeutsam, wie er unterstellt? Das ändert allerding nichts daran, dass der Leser einen unfassbaren Berg von Material - gut geordnet - erhält, und das schmälert auch das Vergnügen nicht, all diesen schlauen, sarkastischen, streitlustigen, größenwahnsinnigen Franzosen (wieder) zu begegnen.
Nicht zu vergessen, dass Watson die schönsten Sätze über Les liaisons dangereuses (und über den Libertin im Allgemeinen) schreibt:
„…Never forgetting for a moment that all libertine stories are at one level pornographic, the libertine author makes - or tries to make - a serious point about love as a synecdoche for the human condition at large. While love may be the greatest experience to be had, its perils make one wonder if it is ever worth the price. The libertine has come to the conclusion that it isn't. Except that there is always, at the back of the mind, the worry that to miss out on real love is to miss out on something worth having . .. There is always, deep down, a fear among libertines that they risk missing out. …“
Nicht zu vergessen, dass Watson die schönsten Sätze über Les liaisons dangereuses (und über den Libertin im Allgemeinen) schreibt:
„…Never forgetting for a moment that all libertine stories are at one level pornographic, the libertine author makes - or tries to make - a serious point about love as a synecdoche for the human condition at large. While love may be the greatest experience to be had, its perils make one wonder if it is ever worth the price. The libertine has come to the conclusion that it isn't. Except that there is always, at the back of the mind, the worry that to miss out on real love is to miss out on something worth having . .. There is always, deep down, a fear among libertines that they risk missing out. …“
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 24, 2025
Another Peter Watson tome, another 900-page journey. Like his earlier masterpieces like The German Genius, Watson takes an enormous sweep of history and culture and turns it into a compelling, deeply readable narrative. The French Mind attempts to answer a deceptively simple question: What makes the French mind so French?
Spanning the Enlightenment to the Second World War, this book traverses history, philosophy, science, politics, art, and sociology, piecing together a panoramic portrait of the French nation and people. Watson is a master of synthesis, drawing lines between seemingly disparate ideas and weaving them into a coherent whole. His approach is as scholarly as it is accessible.
For readers from the Anglo-American sphere, this is an especially eye-opening read. For me, this was full of “TIL” moments, especially on the French relationship with morality, etiquette, love, war, and their perennial rivalry with Britain.
If you love history, culture, and ideas, this is a book worth settling into. It’s a remarkable, illuminating experience—one of Watson’s finest.
Spanning the Enlightenment to the Second World War, this book traverses history, philosophy, science, politics, art, and sociology, piecing together a panoramic portrait of the French nation and people. Watson is a master of synthesis, drawing lines between seemingly disparate ideas and weaving them into a coherent whole. His approach is as scholarly as it is accessible.
For readers from the Anglo-American sphere, this is an especially eye-opening read. For me, this was full of “TIL” moments, especially on the French relationship with morality, etiquette, love, war, and their perennial rivalry with Britain.
If you love history, culture, and ideas, this is a book worth settling into. It’s a remarkable, illuminating experience—one of Watson’s finest.
September 23, 2023
I feel slightly dizzy in the head from ingesting so much French culture as if I had ingested a glass of particularly beautiful champagne. By reading this book, I also exposed myself strongly, I might suggest, to feminine culture; the chapter on Simone De Beauvoir is some of the most eloquent writing I've read on her work. Peter Watson gives her equal, if not greater, weight than her beau, Sartre; after all, Beauvoir's writings about what determines a woman are far more discussed these days.
Then again, I'd quibble that Truffaut and Godard are never mentioned. Maybe Peter Watson (the author) thought they were more visual than psychological -- the book is called The French Mind, after all. And Camus is barely discussed. I understand not everything can be discussed, and the book is very long to begin with, but it would have been nice.
Then again, I'd quibble that Truffaut and Godard are never mentioned. Maybe Peter Watson (the author) thought they were more visual than psychological -- the book is called The French Mind, after all. And Camus is barely discussed. I understand not everything can be discussed, and the book is very long to begin with, but it would have been nice.
April 22, 2025
I found the first half of this book a real chore to get through, but loved later chapters of the book (from around Hugo or Baudelaire onwards). I found reading about the salons themselves rather dull - unfortunate given that they are the glue that holds all of this together and key to the final conclusions.
I'll definitely cherry pick chapters to re-read, and I've definitely added some extra length to my "to read" list.
I'll definitely cherry pick chapters to re-read, and I've definitely added some extra length to my "to read" list.
April 2, 2024
Very good, informative and easy to follow...incredible amount of info to absorb.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews