MACRON BRAND SAID TO BE TOXIC 2024: 4/4 Revolution Française: Emmanuel Macron and the quest to reinvent a nation, by Sophie Pedder. Hardcover – August 14, 2018
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
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🗓️ 30 June 2024
⏱️ 7 minutes
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Summary
He emerged from nowhere to seize the presidency, defeat populism and upend French party politics. Who is Emmanuel Macron? How far can he really change France?
In Revolution Française, Sophie Pedder examines the first year in office of France's youngest and most exciting president in modern times, with unique perspective from her time as head of The Economist's Paris bureau. President Emmanuel Macron's vision for France is far more radical than many realize. His remarkable ascent from obscurity to the presidency is both a dramatic story of personal ambition and the tale of a wounded once-proud country in deep need of renewal. What shaped this enigmatic character, the precociously bright student and talented networker from northern France; the philosophy graduate and Rothschild banker who married his school drama teacher? How did a political outsider manage to defy the unwritten rules of the Fifth Republic and secure the presidency at his first attempt? And what are the underlying ideas behind his vision?
This book chronicles Macron's remarkable rise from independent outsider to the Élysée Palace, situating the achievement in a broader context: France's slide into self-doubt, political gridlock and a seeming reluctance to embrace change; the roots of populism and discontent; the fractures caused by globalization and the Le Pen factor. Looking back on the young president's dramatic first year in power, with analysis of his key reforms and lofty ambitions, it asks how far it is possible for Macron to reinvent a conservative nation uneasy about embracing the future. Can the man nicknamed 'Jupiter' really return France to its former greatness, or will he, by the time his mandate expires, end up as just another side note in political history? Punctuated with first-hand conversations and reporting, this book takes on all of these questions, concluding with a fascinating and exclusive interview with Macron recorded in early 2018. Pedder's riveting, and essential, book will be one of the most captivating political books of this year
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| 0:00.0 | This is a new book is Voyager. |
| 0:05.0 | And Professor Nicholas Thomas is here. |
| 0:09.0 | His new book is Voyager. |
| 0:10.0 | Many avenues that we've not had time to explore but now the great big mystery that just sits |
| 0:16.0 | there and makes you laugh is like the Game of Thrones or trying to figure out the world by reading Greek history. All right, here we go. It's a map, not quite a map, |
| 0:27.0 | constructed by 2-Paeia. I say that incorrectly, Professor, forgive me me what are we looking at because you reproduce it in your book |
| 0:39.4 | On Cook's first voyage the ship spent several months off the island of Tahiti and the British |
| 0:49.0 | developed close relationships with a host of islanders. |
| 0:54.0 | It wasn't one of these passing encounters |
| 0:56.5 | where they exchanged a few things or interacted violently. |
| 1:00.8 | It was a sustained interaction. And one of the most extraordinary aspects of this interaction was that Tupaya who was a priest, a navigator, a political player in the dynamics of the Tahitian kingdoms at that time. |
| 1:18.0 | He was clearly extremely interested in these people who had appeared from beyond the known universe at that particular time. |
| 1:27.0 | He was interested in why they were there and what they were doing. |
| 1:31.0 | So he spent a great deal of time with Joseph Banks and with Cook. And when time came for the ship to depart, he wanted to join the voyage. He took a young boy, a servant with him, and his interest was in visiting |
| 1:48.1 | England and learning what he could about a society that he knew nothing about before. |
| 1:56.0 | Cook, of course, was very interested in the geography of the Pacific. |
| 2:02.0 | There were clearly islands that had never been visited by Europeans. |
| 2:08.0 | He clearly made inquiries of Tupaya. He tried to learn as much as he could from him. A number of the British had some grasp of Tahitian they could communicate. |
| 2:23.0 | To Pire obviously witnessed Cook drawing charts. |
| 2:27.0 | He witnessed the charts that were used on a daily basis in navigation and he produced a math, a kind of chart, a diagram as his contribution |
| 2:40.2 | to this ongoing inquiry and that is an extraordinary image of many many islands in |
| 2:49.8 | Polynesia in the Pacific that Tupaya knew about. |
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