In what ways are Frenchman different from other human being? Zeldin investigates here the ideas they have had about themselves, their attitudes to foreigners the nature of their nationalism, the significance of being a Breton or an Alsatian, a Provencal or an Auvergnat. To what extant have the French been fashioned by their schools to think, that argue are and express themselves in ways that are unique? Zeldin examines their teaching methods at all levels, their cultivation of logic, verbalism and competitiveness, their desperate fights against the rebelliousness of their pupils the chaos of university life.