The @Google Program was happy to welcome noted author Graham Robb to discuss his new book: The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography, from the Revolution to the First World War

Graham Robb is the author previously of biographies of Arthur Rimbaud, Victor Hugo, and Honoré de Balzac, each of which was named an Editors' Choice Best Book of the Year by the New York Times Book Review. His last book, about Rimbaud, is oft-cited as the best literary biography of the past ten years.

His new book, which he'll be speaking about, chronicles the exploration, colonization, and development of France in an attempt to explain how the modern nation came to be. The book, which Mr. Robb researched, in part, by bicycling 14,000 miles around France, was recently features on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, which called it a "brilliant work of history" and concludes that "France is not what it seems, least of all to its own citizens. Mr. Robb has accomplished quite a feat. He has reintroduced France to itself."

This event took place at the Google NYC campus on November 28, 2007