'Drake has an unusual gift of being able to step back and look across the Channel with equanimity, without even a touch of superciliousness, and present to the reader a true cacophony of highly literate and highly combative voices in such a way that a foreigner can hear them, can grasp the motivations behind and the rationales for more than a half-century of French intellectuals' descending from the ivory tower into the harsh, often confused world of socio-political actuality.' - David L. Schalk, Vassar College, for H-France