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A Certain Idea of France - The Life of Charles de Gaulle (Hardcover)
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A Certain Idea of France - The Life of Charles de Gaulle (Hardcover)
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Winner of the Duff Cooper Prize for History A SUNDAY TIMES, THE
TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN, SPECTATOR, FINANCIAL TIMES,
TLS BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Masterly ... awesome reading ... an
outstanding biography' Max Hastings, Sunday Times In six weeks in
the early summer of 1940, France was over-run by German troops and
quickly surrendered. The French government of Marshal Petain sued
for peace and signed an armistice. One little-known junior French
general, refusing to accept defeat, made his way to England. On 18
June he spoke to his compatriots over the BBC, urging them to rally
to him in London. 'Whatever happens, the flame of French resistance
must not be extinguished and will not be extinguished.' At that
moment, Charles de Gaulle entered into history. For the rest of the
war, de Gaulle frequently bit the hand that fed him. He insisted on
being treated as the true embodiment of France, and quarrelled
violently with Churchill and Roosevelt. He was prickly, stubborn,
aloof and self-contained. But through sheer force of personality
and bloody-mindedness he managed to have France recognised as one
of the victorious Allies, occupying its own zone in defeated
Germany. For ten years after 1958 he was President of France's
Fifth Republic, which he created and which endures to this day. His
pursuit of 'a certain idea of France' challenged American hegemony,
took France out of NATO and twice vetoed British entry into the
European Community. His controversial decolonization of Algeria
brought France to the brink of civil war and provoked several
assassination attempts. Julian Jackson's magnificent biography
reveals this the life of this titanic figure as never before. It
draws on a vast range of published and unpublished memoirs and
documents - including the recently opened de Gaulle archives - to
show how de Gaulle achieved so much during the War when his
resources were so astonishingly few, and how, as President, he put
a medium-rank power at the centre of world affairs. No previous
biography has depicted his paradoxes so vividly. Much of French
politics since his death has been about his legacy, and he remains
by far the greatest French leader since Napoleon.
General
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