Product Description

This concise history of France from the occupation in 1940 to liberation in 1944 focuses on the struggle between those who favoured collaboration with the occupying Germans and those who opted to resist.
Roderick Kedward shows how ordinary people experienced the occupation; he examines the politics and ideology of the Victory regime, and he discusses the many different forms of resistance launched from inside and outside France. He particularly emphasizes the changing nature of both collaboration and resistance as the pressure of the occupatoin intensified, and asks whether France was involved in a civil war by 1944.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #55744 in Books
• Published on: 1985-04-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

Review
"A splendid book. It provides an admirably concise narrative of the major events and personalities that shaped the experience of collaboration and resistance in France between 1940 and 1944 with many new insights drawn from recent research." Teaching History

"A tour de force. To write a history of Vichy, collaboration, resistance and liberation in only 80 pages ... is a feat only as skilled and scholarly a historian such as Mr. Kedward could have carried out." Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France

From the Back Cover
This concise history of France from the occupation in 1940 to liberation in 1944 focuses on the struggle between those who favored collaboration with the occupying Germans and those who opted to resist.

Roderick Kedward shows how ordinary people experienced the occupation; he examines the politics and ideology of the Vichy regime, and he discusses the many different forms of resistance launched from inside and outside France. He particularly emphasizes the changing nature of both collaboration and resistance as the pressure of the occupation intensified, and asks whether France was involved in a civil war by 1944.

Customer Reviews

Thought-provoking and highly readable
Although this text was actually written about 15 years ago it has still not gone out of date. The analysis is intelligent and extremely original. One of the excellent things Kedward does here is to focus the reader's mind on questions of everyday life. The book is extremely readable and can be highly recommended to anyone with even a passing interest in history. The book will grab you from beginning to end. Even if you have never read anything else on world war two France check this one out.

A well written essay that covers a lot of ground.
I bought this after watching Marcel Ophuls 'The Sorrow and the Pity', and wanting to know more about the reality of the French occupation and collaboration. It's more of a lengthy essay than an in-depth examination of the issues, but the author does pack a lot of information into it. It's an interesting introduction to, and summary of, this difficult but fascinating period of French wartime history.