cover image Fragile Glory

Fragile Glory

Richard Bernstein. Plume Books, $23 (368pp) ISBN 978-0-452-26678-0

Bernstein maintains that the French, contrary to their reputation for smugness, are actually shy, elegant and formal people with an anarchic streak and a devotion to pleasure. ``This well-rounded portrait of France today is a spirited introduction to a prosperous, complacent, Americanized people whom modernity has `leached out of their particularity,' '' said PW. (Oct.)