Description
Book SynopsisA definitive new account of France in World War II exploring the country's collapse in 1940, the rise of Charles de Gaulle's Free French, the occupation, and culminating in the November 1942 invasion of French North Africa. In Defeat and Division, Douglas Porch launches an unparalleled history of France's wartime ordeal.
Trade Review'A clear-eyed, ambitious and myth-busting account that places the Fall of France in 1940 and De Gaulle's Free French in a wider scenario that sees Vichy France and its colonial empire as a serious military player down to 1942. A tour de force by a historian who is a master of his craft.' Robert Gildea, author of Fighters in the Shadows: A New History of the French Resistance
'This superb and ambitious book will fill a very substantial gap (and puzzling) in the massive literature on the history of the Second World War. Douglas Porch has mastered an impressively diverse literature on the military, imperial, diplomatic, cultural and social history of France at war. This material is synthesised and combined with extensive work in the French archives to produce an important and original reinterpretation of France's wartime experience that will serve as a standard work for years to come.' Peter Jackson, author of Beyond the Balance of Power: France and the Politics of National Security in the Era of the First World War
'Comprehensive and encyclopaedic in its coverage, Defeat and Division is destined to become an invaluable resource for understanding the war in Europe. Porch has given us new lenses through which to see and understand the French war.' Michael Neiberg, author of When France Fell: Vichy and the Fate of the Anglo-American Alliance
'Douglas Porch has produced an important and much-needed new look at the darkest period in French history. Defeat and Division is a deeply researched, robustly argued and entertainingly written history of a France destroyed by the weaknesses of its own leadership. This is a book that anyone interested in the Second World War or modern French history should read.' Phillips O'Brien, author of How the War was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II
Table of ContentsIntroduction; 1. 'Missed Opportunity Mythology'; 2. From Phoney Peace to Phoney War, 1938–1940; 3. Case Yellow; 4. 'Stand and Fight...'; 5. “The War is Over for Us”; 6. “The Wisdom of a Great Leader.”; 7. La France libre; 8. 'Grandi soldati'; 9. France's North African Hinterland; 10. TORCH; Epilogue.
