There has been since the 1940s, Frédéric Bozo argues, a certain consistency in France. English-reading audiences (or, as Charles de Gaulle might put it, les Anglo-Saxons) can now read an updated edition of Bozo's history of French foreign policy since 1945. The book, translated from the French second edition, published in 2012, and incorporating a new epilogue, is subtitled “an introduction.” At under 200 pages of text, this subtitle makes sense. An interested reader might pursue more-detailed accounts of many of the events and policies Bozo describes. But this book is also far more than an introduction; it is an analysis, an argument, and an erudite summation by an esteemed historian of French foreign policy.
Bozo's overarching argument is clearly articulated in both the introduction and the conclusion: Despite changes in leadership and changes in the world, French foreign policy has been marked by continuity. Certain themes have recurred...