Description: Robert Gildea's penetrating history of France during World War II sweeps aside the French Resistance of a thousand clichés. Gaining a true understanding of the Resistance means recognizing how its image has been carefully curated through a combination of French politics and pride, ever since jubilant crowds celebrated Paris's liberation in 1944.
Brief description: Robert Gildea is Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford.
Review Quotes: This book is a must-read. It paints on a broad canvas the story of the men and the women, French and foreign, who fought and fell in the ranks of the French Resistance, following the interior resistance and the Free French, political movements, Allied intelligence networks and the maquis. Gildea confronts the dissensions that divided the Resistance and evokes the many and complex emotions experienced by its fighters. He has accomplished a tour de force.--Guillaume Piketty, Professor of History, Sciences Po, Paris