Description
Book SynopsisOlivier Wieviorka’s history of the French Resistance debunks lingering myths and offers fresh insight into social, political, and military aspects of its operation. He reveals not one but many interlocking homegrown groups often at odds over goals, methods, and leadership. Yet, despite a lack of unity, these fighters braved Nazism without blinking.
Trade ReviewThe work of [a] seasoned scholar and energetic researcher…The ultimate question is what difference the French Resistance really made. Wieviorka considers this matter most fully. -- Robert O. Paxton * New York Review of Books *
[Wieviorka] carefully traces the evolution of the often-fraught relationship between the internal Resistance in France and Charles de Gaulle’s London-based Free French, the Resistance’s growing complexity (and costliness) as a bureaucracy, and its debates over goals and approaches…Few historians can navigate the complexities of this period with Wieviorka’s skill and assurance. -- Robert Zaretsky * Chronicle of Higher Education *
This is an impressive synthesis which…is now one of the starting points for understanding the French Resistance. -- Martin Evans * History Today *
The Resistance has found its historian. * Le Point *
Olivier Wieviorka [is] one of the most brilliant historians of his generation. * L’Express *
Wieviorka brings important insights into a critical and often misunderstood topic. Going beyond the myths and partisanship surrounding the Resistance, and World War II more generally, this book will help set the tone for future work on the period. -- Michael S. Neiberg, author of
The Blood of Free Men: The Liberation of Paris, 1944A wide-ranging synthesis that treats a compelling subject with an equal mix of critical intelligence and deep respect. For serious, thoughtful readers who want to get a look at the Resistance as the most recent scholarship now sees it, with many of the mythic cobwebs swept away, this is the book for them. -- Philip Nord, author of
France 1940: Defending the RepublicAn admirable history and the best single-volume work on the subject so far. -- Patrick Marnham * Literary Review *
Magisterial…Wieviorka shows that the Resistance was divided and fragmented from the start, and that the many and varied organizations that constituted it were often driven by political ideology…[An] engrossing book. -- Richard J. Evans * London Review of Books *
