In France Profound: The Long History of a House, a Mountain Town, and a People

In this sumptuous account, the late journalist Allman (Finding Florida) celebrates Lauzerte, a remote mountain village in southwestern France where he lived in an 800-year-old house for more than three decades until his death in May of this year. Delving into local history, Allman suggests that, by pushing back since the Middle Ages against incursions and overweening dictates from northern France, England, the Catholic Church, and Nazi Germany, the region has subtly shaped the modern era—not so much as a maker of history but as a resister of it. Among the examples he highlights are the sweeping legacy of Eleanor of Aquitaine, a 12th-century native of the region, whose dynastic meddling as queen of England, much of it made in an attempt to preserve the independence of her homeland, defined many of Europe’s modern borders; and the region’s resistance to Pope Innocent III’s 13th-century persecution of Cathar heretics—a bloody campaign, which Allman argues established a genocidal ethos in European culture that led to the Holocaust. The most penetrating aspect of Allman’s narrative is his exploration of how his relationship with the town has altered his perception of what history is and how it moves (“Everything, sooner or later, converges on Lauzerte”), which often takes a wry turn, as when he explains that his “paella man” exemplifies an ancient “noblesse oblige.” This enthralls. (Aug.)