FRENCH CULTURAL READER.

François Denoeu (Agrégé d'anglais. Professeur honoraire à Dartmouth College).Lexington (Mass.): D. C. Heath andCompany, 1972. 372 pp. Foreword by theauthor in English. Profusely illustrated.Questionnaires, bibliography, vocabulary,and index. $7.95.

Francois Denoeu's latest book is a revision of Image de la France, itself an outgrowth of Petit miroir de la civilisation frangaise, first published in 1938. The appeal of these books is indicated by their adoption at a wide range of schools during all those years. Mr. Denoeu devoted his long teaching career in this country—most of it at Dartmouth—to communicating his love for France. He came to the United States after the First World War, in which he fought as a young soldier alongside men like Péguy and de Gaulle to save France.

This latest book, like its predecessors, reflects the educational tradition in which Mr. Denoeu was formed, and which he represented so well: that attempt to bind together all French-speaking people through the historical consciousness which to this day is so strikingly alive in their minds and hearts. But Mr. Denoeu's long career in his adopted country has given him a special vantage point from which to view his native land. This lends to his book a double value: it portrays France with accuracy and authority but also illuminates those aspects which need explaining for Americans.

Students will find in it a mine of information organized according to a traditional plan: from geography to historical periods with their political, literary, artistic, and scientific highlights to contemporary politics and life—this last part being, logically enough, by far the most extensive. All the chapters are enlivened by excellent illustration of the French landscape, monuments, culture, and life: photographs, engravings, maps, and color plates of the representative modern artists. (If there is any reproach to be made it would be that, confronted with the wealth of material at his disposal, Mr. Denoeu has not had the heart to eliminate some relatively minor figures and facts.) In the last part of the book the reader will find practical information for planning a stay in France and then getting the most out of it. It is full of judicious advice on matters ranging from manners peculiar to the French to travel grants or scholarships available to American students.

Thanks to Mr. Denoeu's teaching experience, the French language he uses throughout strikes a happy balance between elegant authenticity and admirable clarity, which gives the average reader the feeling that he is in full command of French idioms. The excellent glossary at the end will serve adequately for the words that may have slipped through the sieve of memory.

His former students and other alumni will be proud and happy to see from the evidence of this book that Francois Denoeu continues his labor of love in an active and fruitful retirement.

Senior lecturer in Romance Languages andLiteratures at Dartmouth, Mrs. Sices teachesthe French Language: Advanced TrainingThrough Contemporary Culture, which isdesigned especially for participants in theDartmouth Foreign Study Program.