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One of the most interesting materials I was exposed to in a college french course was actually an 8th-grade level French history book. It was beautifully illustrated, not all that difficult to read, and it spanned an impressive amount of time and material (at least compared to the US history books I had been exposed to before)

I was really surprised to see a whole chapter dedicated to Ancient Gaul, a place I had never even heard of until then. Brits may begin their history with Rome, but us Americans seem to start our tale in England (with perhaps a very small nod to the native cultures that predated English colonization). Anyhow, it's fascinating from the American perspective how relatively "young" we really are as a national identity.

So you've never read Asterix. You're in for a treat.
Although I wonder how they translate the never ending puns in English.
Very effectively. The English versions are celebrated almost as much for the translations by Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge as for everything else. Puns are translated quite freely; in many places they make up new ones. See e.g. https://auntymuriel.com/2012/12/23/asterix-in-translation-th...
That's a hell of a good work, and that shows they deeply cared about the result.

I recall a line from "The 5th Element" movie:

- Are you classified as human ?

- Negative, I'm a meat popsicle

Well, not only Bruce Willis has a killer french voice actor, but they translated it to:

- Êtes-vous classifié comme humain ?

- Négatif, je suis un mite en pull-over

"Négatif, je suis un mite en pull-over" means "Negative, I'm a moth in a sweater". Which is nowhere close to the original, but equally funny and nonsensical, and matches the lips movement perfectly.

Now I just resolved myself to go to see a non french movie at the theater only if it's the original version. Dubbing became so bad, it's like they use the same 10 voice actors for all the movies, and the writers are bored junior interns.

Wow. The translations are impressive indeed, I didn't expect that.

That reminds me of the French traduction of Discworld, an amazing work by Patrick Couton.

Traduction is translation in English, one of the three faux amies with -ion at end.
That was me not paying attention. Though if you look closely, I got it right the first time ;)
Apparently puns can be translated rather freely (to match the cultural context of the target language), but they need to be translated back, explained and authorized.
Wait, you start in Rome or England?? History lessons in western society better start in Ancient Greece, don't you think?
I think he means American History vs French history. World History is going to world history no matter where you take it.
I was trying to remember my history lessons that I had growing up in France and for those interested, I find a nice link with lots of PDF for primary school : http://www.academie-en-ligne.fr/Ecole/Ressources.aspx?PREFIX...
>World History is going to world history no matter where you take it

I'm afraid you are very much mistaken here. Having had the chance to look at primary school history book in four different countries (FR, DE, JP, US), written in four different languages, they each tell a vastly different tale.

Which doesn't mean they were necessarily contradicting each other, but rather spoke of entirely different things, or shone a completely different light on a particular event.

To give two simplistic examples, try to compare what is taught about Napoleon in French history book (he's a national hero) vs. German ones (he's depicted as the Hitler of his time). And try to go read about the history of WWII in a Japanese history book, you'll be amazed.

I agree with you, but at the same time feel the need to point out you disregard the previous comment's distinction of national v world histories. It does seem a bit spurious since school classes of history are mostly about creating an outlook of a country onto their relationship with themselves and others.
My point was that some history is more important than other. Ancient Greece lays the foundation of citizenship, democracy and lots of arts and culture important today.
was it braudel’s history of civilizations?
A good read outlining the different kinds of historical writing, including 'passé présomptif' where an author makes statements that their subjuct may have done something or would have been familiar with something else. It ends, essentially, as a review of Jean-Louis Brunaux's Vercingétorix .
I agree. It's a great article.

Incidentally, the "passé présomptif" is also much used for writing about Shakespeare: a similar phenomenon. Now I know what to call it.

When I was younger I read a really good book about Homer that was kind of framed as a 'biography' of Odysseus that was written in that way, but it was open from the start that it was an artifice used to elucidate what we know about the Greek Dark Ages.
I, like the article writer, enjoy much more a clear listing of what is known and how it's been remembered later on, rather than a plausible view of his life.
It's a lively and interesting piece IMO.

>"In schools, Our Island Story starts with Roman Britain, [...]" //

I'd have thought that was because Britain wasn't a thing until the Roman conquest. AFAICT prior to Roman occupation there wasn't a Britain, there were different tribes, but they weren't united in to a nation, they weren't even a loose affiliation.

When it notes that some Iceni tried to revolt, that tells you exactly why British history is started there. Otherwise it would be "some Britons tried to revolt".

What's he doing in the imagined prose when he gives French words in parentheticals, I don't get it. And shouldn't it be "knows [savait]" rather than connaisait?

The same was true for the Gauls, pre-Roman conquest.

> And shouldn't it be "knows [savait]" rather than connaisait?

No, connaître is the right word. If you took French class, you probably learned that you "savoir" a thing or skill and you "connaître" a person, but that's not the correct dichotomy. Instead, "savoir" is more for knowing concrete, particular facts, while "connaître" is a weaker, vaguer familiarity, almost more like "to know about" or "to know of" rather than "to know". In this usage, Vercingetorix isn't implied to have had these skills themselves but rather to know of them.

Both senses of 'to know' from Latin's cognoscere and sapere similarly flow through to other Romance languages including Portuguese (conhecer/saber) Italian (conoscere/sapere) and Spanish (conocer/saber).
Not just in schooling, but in Duolingo, and in Collins dictionary they say savoir faire for knowing how to do qch.

... on re-reading the OP I see I misunderstood the English, when the writer says "come to know the skill", I thought he meant Vercingetorix had become skilled -- and that this was hyperbole intended to highlight the ludicrous stretches of imagination possible with passé présomptif. Rather the writer means Vercingetorix came to know of the skills others possessed. Ah! Maintenant, je le comprends.

It's also true that you can't « savoir » a person or object.
> What's he doing in the imagined prose when he gives French words in parentheticals, I don't get it.

That's not imagined prose. That's an excerpt from the book in translation, with the original French verb used in brackets.

Britain was somewhat united under Roman rule (although Scotland wasn't), but as a province of subordinate tribes. After Roman influence collapsed the Saxons smashed Roman Britain to pieces. It took several hundred years for England to be reunited under the Anglo-Saxon king Alfred I and five hundred more for Wales.

The modern British nation is culturally descended from the post-Roman Anglo-Saxons, not the Celtic Britons who inhabited Roman Britain.

> The modern British nation is culturally descended from the post-Roman Anglo-Saxons, not the Celtic Britons who inhabited Roman Britain.

Whoa, that's controversial!

Some English people consider themselves Celts, and some consider themselves Anglo-Saxons. I'm not sure whether it's political or more like being a dog person or a cat person.

The Celtic faction got quite a boost in the nineteenth century, which is when a lot of things that people today think of as Celtic ("Celtic art", for example) were rediscovered, or perhaps, in some cases, some would claim, invented.

Celtic influence in the English language has perhaps been rather ignored: English words that seem almost identical in form and meaning to Welsh or Cornish words have had their etymologies given in dictionaries as "unknown" or "obscure". The distinction between present and present continuous ("I eat" versus "I am eating") is perhaps an example of Celtic influence in English, and it suggests that English was at some point widely spoken by people whose native language was Celtic.

(The Americans' failure to distinguish correctly - from the British point of view - between "I ate" and "I have eaten" is likewise arguably due to American English being at one point widely spoken by people whose native language was German.)

Could you explain further please? American English most definitely has a distinction between "I ate" and "I have eaten".
I don't know enough about American English to "explain", unfortunately. I just notice that American speakers sometimes use one form when the other would be required in British English. For all I know, from an American point of view, perhaps British speakers are failing to make a distinction. However, something seems to have happened to those verb forms, and I think the change must have happened in colloquial American English because in this particular respect it's colloquial American that is different, while formal American, formal British and informal British all seem to agree with each other, as far as I can tell.
I wonder if you're referring to what's described in the first section of this article: http://www.onestopenglish.com/grammar/grammar-reference/amer...

As a lifelong American, I don't think that this is 100% widespread, many of the supposed Americanisms sound borderline "wrong" to me, and the only one I would favor is "She just left" instead of "She's just left".

And, having a German family history myself, I have trouble seeing this as a particularly German phenomenon.

>> Just try to think of a famous saying by Boudicca.

Well, there is that thing she used to say as she went into Warp Spasm just before ploughing into the Romans; "grrraaaaAAARRRGGGGHHH!!".

Historical fact.

I see that you have garnered a few down-votes for this - for not putting it in the passé présomptif, I would guess.
I know. My apologies to the readers who find jokes are not acceptable on HN. My feeling is that sometimes it's worth burning a little karma to lighten the mood just a bit.
> In France, things are different. Ever since the Revolution, the idea of a deep and mystical connection with “our ancestors the Gauls” has been central to French national identity.

This is not true anymore. I was in primary school in the 80' (when you usually learn these things, usually twice) and indeed, the Gaulois mentality was strong.

My children now go to school (the same one btw) and they are repeatibly taught about how good the relationship between the Gaulois and the Romans was. The Gallo-Romains is all the rage now and they supposedly mixed extremely well, each taking from the other three good parts of their culture.

The trade aspect of the Gaulois' work is also highlighted a lot (so they are not shown anymore as warring tribes).

I think my children had a passing info about Vercingétorix but it was very minor.

In Germany it's basically

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arminius

and it isn't used in Asterix either for obvious reasons.

I wonder what the translation for Astérix and the Goths is like in German.
Great color on Vercingetorix in Dan Carlin's podcast: https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-60-the-ce...
I agree. This episode is called The Celtic Holocaust. Great alternate read of the Gallic Wars by Caesar.
That was a well informed piece, worth reading, but the final complaint is weak - so the book was just about its subject life and times and not piled on with later centuries' consequential factoids ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety_of_influence strikes again.