democracy would make people more and more alike, Zeldin discovers the opposite, that they become more different. And the reactions in the media showed how divided they were. 'The French, I know them, you may say. But everything here will surprise you.' ‘He understands us better than those who govern us, than our spouses, our bosses and our children.' 'His book is not just funny, it is intelligent, loving, caustic, learned, lively, serious, brilliant…sweeping away all the stereotypes.' However, Zeldin's picture, 'warts and all', including the dark side of admired institutions, disturbed those who resented their cherished beliefs being undermined. In particular, the challenge to the concept of national identity aroused a long debate about it, though no agreement emerged as to what France's national identity was, the country's whole history being endless dispute as to what it should be. Whereas some saw the book as 'a love letter' to the French people, written with 'humour and friendship', others complained that the book was 'cruel' and 'hostile'. In a ceremony in Zeldin's honour, the French Ambassador in London said that his books 'caused a sensation in France. You are no doubt the person from outside France who has best analysed, decoded and understood us. It's often been through reading you that I've found the most pertinent observations on our country and its complexity – observations that are sometimes cruel, always accurate, and also imbued with great friendship and, I would say, almost tenderness… An observer who is at once critical and loving, demanding and generous, you are without equal in holding up to us a mirror that accurately reflects both our virtues and our failings. Indeed, you seek meticulously to understand us and to improve not only your compatriots' understanding of the French – and hence our ability to work better together – but also relationships between human beings in general.' Happiness Zeldin has said in press interviews that France has been his ‘laboratory’, its people were his ‘guinea-pigs’, who could, thanks to their rich literature and long tradition of articulacy and free debate, provide an introduction to many of the problems and delights of being alive. It was not surprising that his next project was an investigation of human values on an international scale, because all the desires and animosities he had studied in France extended beyond national boundaries and beyond the centuries he had written about. He took