"A rich and intriguing story whcih the authors disentangle with great skill."--Sunday Telegraph From Antony Beevor, the internationally bestselling author of D-Day and The Battle of Arnhem In this brilliant synthesis of social, political, and cultural history, Antony Beevor and Artemis Cooper present a vivid and compelling portrayal of the City of Lights after its liberation. Paris became the diplomatic battleground in the opening stages of the Cold War. Against this volatile political backdrop, every aspect of life is portrayed: scores were settled in a rough and uneven justice, black marketers grew rich on the misery of the population, and a growing number of intellectual luminaries and artists including Hemingway, Beckett, Camus, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Cocteau, and Picassocontributed new ideas and a renewed vitality to this extraordinary moment in time.

Prize-winning and bestselling historian Jean Edward Smith tells the “rousing” (Jay Winik, author of 1944) story of the liberation of Paris during World War II—a triumph achieved only through the remarkable efforts of Americans, French, and Germans, racing to save the city from destruction. Following their breakout from Normandy in late June 1944, the Allies swept across northern France in pursuit of the German army. The Allies intended to bypass Paris and cross the Rhine into Germany, ending the war before winter set in. But as they advanced, local forces in Paris began their own liberation, defying the occupying German troops. Charles de Gaulle, the leading figure of the Free French government, urged General Dwight Eisenhower to divert forces to liberate Paris. Eisenhower’s advisers recommended otherwise, but Ike wanted to help position de Gaulle to lead France after the war. And both men were concerned about partisan conflict in Paris that could leave the communists in control of the city and the national government. Neither man knew that the German commandant, Dietrich von Choltitz, convinced that the war was lost, schemed to surrender the city to the Allies intact, defying Hitler’s orders to leave it a burning ruin. In The Liberation of Paris, Jean Edward Smith puts “one of the most moving moments in the history of the Second World War” (Michael Korda) in context, showing how the decision to free the city came at a heavy price: it slowed the Allied momentum and allowed the Germans to regroup. After the war German generals argued that Eisenhower’s decision to enter Paris prolonged the war for another six months. Was Paris worth this price? Smith answers this question in a “brisk new recounting” that is “terse, authoritative, [and] unsentimental” (The Washington Post).

This title provides an introduction to almost every aspect of the French experience during World War II by integrating political, diplomatic, military, social, cultural and economic history. It chronicles the battles and campaigns that stained French soil with blood.

"This book focuses on the tension between the modernising thrust that places France on a trajectory of convergence with comparable liberal democracies and the defence of a national specificity that can act as a brake, complicating France's relationship with its neighbours, its present and its past. This ambivalence in French political and social life stems from the conscious attempt to rebuild the nation after the trauma of Occupation during World War II and the new beginning provided by the Liberation. The government of the Fourth Republic embraced the pursuit of a modernisation that would enable it to regain its place among the world's leading democratic states. However, this modernising ambition co-exists with the belief in a specific destiny and a unique sense of mission that are intrinsic to the emergence of a sense of nationhood after the revolution of 1789. Raymond defines a critical perspective that draws together historical, economic, social, and political issues into a coherent understanding of what makes France the way it is today. Written with both academic rigour and a highly accessible clarity of style, this volume is a valuable resource for students, educators, and researchers in French and European Studies"--

Black women living in the French empire played a key role in the decolonial movements of the mid-twentieth century. Thinkers and activists, these women lived lives of commitment and risk that landed them in war zones and concentration camps and saw them declared enemies of the state. Annette K. Joseph-Gabriel mines published writings and untapped archives to reveal the anticolonialist endeavors of seven women. Though often overlooked today, Suzanne Césaire, Paulette Nardal, Eugénie Éboué-Tell, Jane Vialle, Andrée Blouin, Aoua Kéita, and Eslanda Robeson took part in a forceful transnational movement. Their activism and thought challenged France's imperial system by shaping forms of citizenship that encouraged multiple cultural and racial identities. Expanding the possibilities of belonging beyond national and even Francophone borders, these women imagined new pan-African and pan-Caribbean identities informed by black feminist intellectual frameworks and practices. The visions they articulated also shifted the idea of citizenship itself, replacing a single form of collective identity and political participation with an expansive plurality of forms of belonging.

In this concise, clearly written book, Thomas and Michael Christofferson provide a balanced introduction to every aspect of the French experience during World War II. Synthesizing a wide range of scholarship, the authors integrate political, diplomatic, military, social, cultural, and economic history in this portrait of a nation and a people at war. Here is a chronicle of the battles and campaigns that stained French soil with blood. Here, also, is the full historical context of the war--its origins, realities, and aftermath--in French society. The authors pay particular attention to the key failures of institutional France--especially the officer corps, political elites, and the Catholic Church. They also assess the controversial history of the Vichy regime and the German occupation, in carefully crafted accounts of resistance and collaboration, Vichy's National Revolution, and the fate of France's Jews. Accessible to both students and general readers, France during World War II develops a full understanding of the actors, events, issues, and controversies of a turbulent era.