Colin Jones

Cultural historian Professor Colin Jones ranges from the Roman defeat of the Gauls to the presidency of Emmanuel Macron to unpick the myths behind French culture and explain how the country has been shaped by forces beyond its borders as much as by those within them.

Jones looks at climate and disease, religion and economy, intellectual life and immigration, and the sans culottes and the gilets jaunes. He challenges what we know about our neighbour across the channel and tells us something new about the world’s most visited country.

Jones is emeritus professor of cultural history at Queen Mary University, London. His previous books include The Fall of Robespierre: 24 Hours in Revolutionary Paris, Paris: Biography of a City, winner of the Enid MacLeod Prize, and The Smile Revolution in Eighteenth-Century Paris.

Part of the Voices of Europe programme.