[silverdog]

Actually, my personal favorite is the billboard outside the American Embassy in Paris that should read: The NEXT time you people get conquered by the krauts, we aren't coming.

That said, the author's interpretation of history is a bit quirky. And even for one raised as a Protestant, the underlying anti-Catholic theme is fairly clear.

[LibertarianInExile]

Yeah, I picked up a wee bit o' anti-Papism there myself. And I hate to agree with Byron, as the French have asked for a grade-A royal ass-kicking since DeGaulle dropped out of NATO, but the anti-French stuff is kinda stretching now.

Again, it's not that I would defend the French. God knows, those insufferably arrogant bastards running their country would laugh as Washington or New York burned. But when you start discussing back when the French actually WERE a world power, you're REALLY reaching.

[skinkinthegrass]

ROFL :)

[happygrl]

The theme is not anti-Catholicism, it is anti-clericism in the extent to which the clerics of 17th century France had a hand in the power politics of Europe. The subject is not Catholics, it is the French whose politics were dominated by its predominant religion. You will note that it is not zeroing in on Italian, Spanish or Austrian politics, who were also Catholic countries. The problem is the French way of looking at the world, and the author argues that it was nutured by French clerics.