“The English hate the French. Who reciprocate … A pureé of prejudice on a bed of inherited loathing.” Such was the no-nonsense verdict of a reputable French magazine a few years ago. Whether intelligent or stupid, people have indeed been prone for centuries to assume the worst of everyone on the other side of the Channel, that stretch of water which is far too narrow to allow for good neighbors. Certainly, each nation has formed its identity in some measure through competition with the other.

For the British, France was the country from whose northern ports might originate invasion and conquest. This fear necessitated a standing defense policy, and a diplomacy to ensure that the Low Countries and the German states were neutral, or better still, allies. Conversely, the French had to try to dominate the Low Countries, and encourage the Irish and the Scots to rebel and help break up the United Kingdom. French rulers from Louis XIV to Napoleon kept on repeating this strategy, attempting but botching no less than six invasions in that whole period. During this second Hundred Years War, the English monarchs were actually Hanoverian, that is, of German extraction.

France was a richer and more populous country than England, with a strong tradition of centralization and militancy, and on the face of it should have knocked puny Britain out of the ring. Sometimes the French appeared to be successful, as when they helped the American colonists free themselves from British rule. The achievement proved ambiguous, however, as it masked the reality that the French were dooming themselves to the revolution that has disordered them right up the present.

Accepted opinion holds that British supremacy derived primarily from its navy, which really did rule the waves. In addition, Britain was developing the political institutions necessary for releasing the population’s creative energies, and the Industrial Revolution in particular. Robert and Isabelle Tombs concur, and go on to suggest that the French fatally failed to see that they were playing to British strengths, and so time and again obliged the British to assume the global role for which they were fitted in a way that the French were not. The end result was that the British were able to place a far more indelible stamp on the rest of the world than the French.

Robert Tombs is of English origins, while Isabelle Tombs was born in France. From time to time they interrupt their narrative while the one puts forth the English perspective, and the other the contradictory French: The device is tiresomely self-indulgent, besides adding to what is already a very long book. They seem determined not to omit any scrap of their researches. A specimen page, for instance, bombards the reader with references to Lord Castlereagh, his brother Lord Stewart, Charles X and Louis-Philippe, François Guizot, Adophe Thiers, Victor Hugo, Eugène Delacroix, Alexis de Tocqueville, Benjamin Constant, and five named Whig peers. Picked out equally at random, another page jumbles up General Robertson, Robert Graves, Rudyard Kipling, John Buchan, André Maurois, and Edward Spears.

In general, though, “That Sweet Enemy” (Knopf, 781 pages, $40) has far more assets than defects; it is stylishly and informatively written, drawing on an immense literature that covers the historical, social, and cultural interplay of the two nations. The French revolution had the unfortunate effect of suffocating everywhere the very idea of reform. Napoleon’s career left another legacy of fear. The consolidation of the various German states into one nation changed the political configuration of Europe during the course of the 19th century. The famous entente cordiale between Britain and France rested on suspicion of Germany, a suspicion that two world wars proved to be only too well founded. The book portrays very vividly General de Gaulle, that egregious but rather larger-than-life character, who finally exposed how shallow the entente cordiale had been.

Under the drama of great and defining events, the French and the English could hardly help conceiving stereotypes of one another, and in parading these various philias and phobias the book is at its best, and most entertaining. Travel literature, the theatre, the press, cartoons, memoirs, are all grist to the mill.

In France’s self-conception of itself as Rome, Britain was its Carthage, a brutish trading center fit to be destroyed, a nation of shopkeepers, of pugilists and jockeys, of Shakespeare, who obeyed none of the formal unities governing Racine or Corneille. The teeth of English women stuck out drolly, and the men had very bad manners as well as far too much money. When the French took stock of British diplomacy, and the extensions of the British Empire that so often appeared to be at the expense of French interests, they comforted themselves with the notion of “perfidious Albion.” So ingrained is that cliché that it still appears regularly in the French press. Yet there were also plenty of Frenchmen from Montesquieu and Voltaire onward who analyzed England’s political and commercial strengths correctly and wished to follow the example, just as there were other Frenchmen who laid out English parks, wore tweeds, took up sports, and even admired Shakespeare.

In the English mirror-image, the French were too civilized, their manners affected and their morals loose; they made good dancing-masters and dressmakers and chefs; they were either undeserving aristocrats or bloodthirsty revolutionaries as memorialized by Edmund Burke, and in both cases to be treated with superior contempt. Yet there were plenty of Englishmen like Lord Chesterfield, that model of a gentleman, who invited everyone to imitate the French, just as there were radicals such as Wordsworth who praised the spirit of revolution.

In theory, both countries are now members of the European Union, and the old victories and defeats are solely of antiquarian interest. In fact, for the first time in history, France and Germany have teamed up against Britain. This novel combination has driven all national identity underground, to fester more and more resentfully. Surprisingly for contemporary academics, the Tombs couple sense the gathering backlash, and accordingly are surreptitiously Eurosceptic. If the past is any guide, Britain will neutralize and even sink the European Union, thus causing “history’s next surprise,” in the far-sighted warning of likely upset that closes this book.

Mr. Pryce-Jones is a senior editor of National Review. His latest book is “Betrayal: France, the Arabs and the Jews” (Encounter Books).