A Telegraph, Spectator, Prospect, and Times Best Book of the Year

Enthralling.―Geoffrey Wheatcroft, New York Review of Books

This is a story not just about Pétain but about war and resistance, the moral compromises of leadership, and the meaning of France itself.―Margaret MacMillan

For three weeks in July 1945 all eyes were fixed on Paris, where France's former head of state was on trial. Would Philippe Pétain, hero of Verdun, be condemned as the traitor of Vichy?

In the terrible month of October 1940, few things were more shocking than the sight of Marshal Philippe Pétain--supremely decorated hero of the First World War, now head of the French government--shaking hands with Hitler. Pausing to look at the cameras, Pétain announced that France would henceforth collaborate with Germany. This is my policy, he intoned. My ministers are responsible to me. It is I alone who will be judged by History.

Five years later, in July 1945, after a wave of violent reprisals following the liberation of Paris, Pétain was put on trial for his conduct during the war. He stood accused of treason, charged with heading a conspiracy to destroy France's democratic government and collaborating with Nazi Germany. The defense claimed he had sacrificed his personal honor to save France and insisted he had shielded the French people from the full scope of Nazi repression. Former resisters called for the death penalty, but many identified with this conservative military hero who had promised peace with dignity.

The award-winning author of a landmark biography of Charles de Gaulle, Julian Jackson uses Pétain's three-week trial as a lens through which to examine one of history's great moral dilemmas. Was the policy of collaboration four years to erase from our history, as the prosecution claimed? Or was it, as conservative politicians insist to this day, a sacrifice that placed pragmatism above moral purity? As head of the Vichy regime, Pétain became the lightning rod for collective guilt and retribution. But he has also been an icon of the nationalist right ever since. In France on Trial, Jackson blends courtroom drama, political intrigue, and brilliant narrative history to highlight the hard choices and moral compromises leaders make in times of war.

A deep look into Charles de Gaulle's personality and upbringing and how these factors influenced the creation of the Fifth Republic in France.

Charles de Gaulle, savior of France's honor in 1940 and founder of the Fifth Republic, was a man and leader of deep contradictions. A conservative and a Catholic from a monarchist family, he restored democracy on his return to France in 1944, bringing the Communists into his government. An imperialist, he oversaw the final stages of France's withdrawal from its last colonies in the 1960s. As a soldier, he spent much of his career in opposition to France's military establishment. Yet, as Julian Jackson shows in De Gaulle, it was precisely because of these contradictions that he was able to reconcile so many of the conflicting strands in French politics. In 1958, in response to a coup by the French military in Algeria, De Gaulle introduced a new political system, the Fifth Republic, ushering in a period of stability that has been held to the present day.

Winner of the Duff Cooper Prize
Winner of the Elizabeth Longford Prize
A New Yorker, Financial Times, Spectator, Times, and Telegraph Book of the Year

In this definitive biography of the mythic general who refused to accept the Nazi domination of France, Julian Jackson captures Charles de Gaulle as never before. Drawing on unpublished letters, memoirs, and papers from the recently opened de Gaulle archive, he shows how this volatile visionary of staunch faith and conservative beliefs infuriated Churchill, challenged American hegemony, recognized the limitations of colonial ambitions in Algeria and Vietnam, and put a broken France back at the center of world affairs.

With a fluent style and near-total command of existing and newly available sources...Julian Jackson has come closer than anyone before him to demystifying this conservative at war with the status quo, for whom national interests were inseparable from personal honor.
--Richard Norton Smith, Wall Street Journal

A sweeping-yet-concise introduction to the most brilliant, infuriating, and ineffably French of men.
--Ross Douthat, New York Times

Classically composed and authoritative...Jackson writes wonderful political history.
--Adam Gopnik, New Yorker

A remarkable book in which the man widely chosen as the Greatest Frenchman is dissected, intelligently and lucidly, then put together again in an extraordinary fair-minded, highly readable portrait. Throughout, the book tells a thrilling story.
--Antonia Fraser, New Statesman

Makes awesome reading, and is a tribute to the fascination of its subject, and to Jackson's mastery of it...A triumph, and hugely readable.
--Max Hastings, Sunday Times

This is the first comprehensive study of the German occupation of France between 1940 and 1944. The author examines the nature and extent of collaboration and resistance, different experiences of Occupation, the persecution of the Jews, intellectual and cultural life under Occupation, and the purge trials that followed. He concludes by tracing the legacy and memory of the Occupation since 1945. Taking in ordinary peoples' experiences, this volume uncovers the conflicting memories of occupation which ensure that even today France continues to debate the legacy of the Vichy years.

This is the first full-length study in English of the Popular Front, the left-wing coalition which emerged in France during the 1930s in response to the threat of fascism and which went on to win the elections of 1936, giving France her first socialist premier, Leon Blum.

After a brief narrative history of the Popular Front the book is organised thematically around the main historiographical debates to which the Popular Front has given rise. Among the issues considered are the origins of the strikes of 1936, the reasons for the failure of the Popular Front economic policy, the relationship between culture and politics in France in the 1930s and the causes of France's policy of non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War, The book views the Popular Front at three levels -- as a mass movement, political coalition and government -- and argues that it must not be seen just as a narrowly political phenomenon but as a political, social and cultural explosion which attempted to break down the barriers between all areas of human activity in the highly compartmentalised society of France in the 1930s. Even if the Popular Front ultimately failed in this aim it has acquired legendary status in France, and the epilogue to the book briefly examines the 'myth' of the Popular Front from 1936 to the present day.

The poor performance of the French economy in the 1930s has long been recognised as a major contributory factor in the decline of the Third Republic, which collapsed after the defeat of 1940. Although France entered the Great Depression later than the rest of the world, French governments failed to learn from the experience of other countries in combating it. This book is the first full study of the formation of economic policy in these crucial years, and of the political debate to which it gave rise. It examines the origins of the notion of planning and the 'planomania', which gripped France in 1934; and it shows why this solution was ultimately rejected. It also analyses in detail the arguments of pro- and anti-devaluers. The conclusion suggests that stagnation was to some extent chosen as a conscious policy, since at least until 1936 the Depression never seemed severe enough to threaten the social order.

Jean Renoir's 1937 film La Grande Illusion is set during the First World War, but its themes of Franco-German conflict, divided loyalties in a time of war and the rise of anti-Semitism made it compelling and controversial viewing. Julian Jackson traces the film's historical context and its reception history.

This book provides a thought-provoking and wide-ranging history of the whole of Europe between 1900 and 1945. Featuring six lively and stimulating chapters that have been specifically written for this volume, Europe 1900-1945 focuses on the political, economic, social, and cultural aspects of this time period. It also examines the international relations within Europe and the wider world. Particular care is taken to integrate developments in southern and eastern Europe (including the USSR) into the more familiar story of what occurred in western and central Europe. A guide to further reading, a chronology, and an index allow readers to follow up on interest in particular countries.

This book provides a thought-provoking and wide-ranging history of the whole of Europe between 1900 and 1945. Featuring six lively and stimulating chapters that have been specifically written for this volume, Europe 1900-1945 focuses on the political, economic, social, and cultural aspects of this time period. It also examines the international relations within Europe and the wider world. Particular care is taken to integrate developments in southern and eastern Europe (including the USSR) into the more familiar story of what occurred in western and central Europe. A guide to further reading, a chronology, and an index allow readers to follow up on interest in particular countries.

This is the first comprehensive study of the German occupation of France between 1940 and 1944. The author examines the nature and extent of collaboration and resistance, different experiences of Occupation, the persecution of the Jews, intellectual and cultural life under Occupation, and the purge trials that followed. He concludes by tracing the legacy and memory of the Occupation since 1945. Taking in ordinary peoples' experiences, this volume uncovers the conflicting memories of occupation which ensure that even today France continues to debate the legacy of the Vichy years.

A Telegraph, Spectator, Prospect, and Times Best Book of the Year

This is a story not just about Pétain but about war and resistance, the moral compromises of leadership, and the meaning of France itself.―Margaret MacMillan

This is a finely tuned history...Those who enjoy tales of the sparring among excellent lawyers arguing an important case will find this book riveting. And for those who want to understand contemporary France and its intricate politics, France on Trial provides...a vibrant analysis of a trial and verdict that remain contentious almost eight decades later.--Ronald C. Rosbottom, Wall Street Journal

Shows Jackson at his best--precise in detail, vivid in imagery, alert to irony, firm in judgment--and carefully disentangles the questions surrounding the Vichy regime that continue to vex French society. --Robert O. Paxton, Harper's

In the terrible month of October 1940, few things were more shocking than the sight of Marshal Philippe Pétain--supremely decorated hero of the First World War, now head of the French government--shaking hands with Hitler. Pétain announced that France would henceforth collaborate with Germany. This is my policy, he intoned. My ministers are responsible to me. It is I alone who will be judged by History.

Five years later, Pétain was put on trial for his conduct during the war. He stood accused of treason, charged with heading a conspiracy to destroy France's democratic government and collaborating with Nazi Germany.

Award-winning author Julian Jackson uses Pétain's three-week trial as a lens through which to examine one of history's great moral dilemmas. Was the policy of collaboration four years to erase from our history, as the prosecution claimed? Or was it, as conservative politicians insist to this day, a sacrifice that placed pragmatism above moral purity? As head of the Vichy regime, Pétain became the lightning rod for collective guilt and retribution. But he has also been an icon of the nationalist right ever since. In France on Trial, Jackson blends courtroom drama, political intrigue, and brilliant narrative history to highlight the hard choices and moral compromises leaders make in times of war.