France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944

by Julian Jackson

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199254576
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	03/28/2003
Pages:	688
Sales rank:	275,815
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Julian Jackson is a Professor of History at the University of Wales, Swansea.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Historians and the Occupation
Anticipations
1. The Shadow of War: Cultural Anxieties and Modern Nightmares
2. Rethinking the Republic 1890-1934
3. Class War/Civil War
4. The German Problem
5. The Daladier Moment: Prelude to Vichy or Republican Revival
6. The Debacle
The Regime: National Revolution and Collaboration
7. The National Revolution
8. Collaboration
9. Collaborationism
10. Laval in Power 1942-43
The Regime, the Germans, and Administration
11. Propaganda,Policing, and Administration
12. Public Opinion, Vichy, and the Germans
13. Intellectuals, Artists, and Entertainers
14. Reconstructing Mankind
15. Vichy and the Jews
The Resistance
16. The Free French 1940-1942
17. The Resistance 1940-1942
18. De Gaulle and the Resistance 1942
19. Power Struggles
20. Resistance in Society
21. The New France
Liberation and After
22. Towards Liberation: January to June 1944
23. Liberations
24. A New France?
25. Remembering the Occupation

Editorial Reviews

"Jackson has synthesized a wealth of secondary works in an account that is thorough, thoughtful, lucid, and awesomely commodious."—Eugen Weber, The Atlantic Monthly

"This book is an exhaustive synthesis of scholarly research, memoirs and diaries...What makes Jackson's account particularly useful is that it traces both the prewar roots of wartime developments and the postwar reverberations—the trials, purges, films and novels. Vichy and the resistance thus emerge clearly as part of the longer run of French history...This book bears impressive testimony to the depth of France's postwar conversation with itself about what it endured during the war,"—The New York Times Book Review

"This insightful, thoroughly researched book will be of interest to scholars and general readers, who will come away with a profound understanding of a crucial time in French history"—Publishers Weekly

"In the most complete and careful history to date of occupied France, Jackson unflinchingly explores the complexities and moral ambiguities of his subject."—The Atlantic Monthly

From the Publisher