Critical acclaim for Sisters in the Resistance

"Often moving . . . always fascinating . . . women in the French Resistance is a key subject. Margaret Weitz has gathered personal testimonies . . . and set them in an intelligible context that helps us understand how all French people—men and women—experienced the Nazi occupation." —Robert Paxton, Mellon Professor of Social Sciences, Columbia University, and author of Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944.

"Compulsive reading . . . a valuable book which vividly portrays the intricacies of resistance within France, written in an easy but serious style." —Times Literary Supplement (London).

"An absolutely stunning and compelling chronicle of dauntless courage and unflagging patriotism." —Booklist.

"[Margaret Collins Weitz's] well-researched, thoughtful study. . . has filled a gap in the history of World War II." —Publishers Weekly.

"Balancing absorbing narrative and astute analysis, Margaret Collins Weitz has integrated the unsung achievements of women into the history of the French Resistance." —Carole Fink, Professor of History, The Ohio State University, and author of Marc Bloch: A Life in History.

"Fifty years after the end of World War II, Sisters in the Resistance renders homage to the courageous women of the French Resistance. It is high time for their contributions to be fully acknowledged, and fortunate indeed that they have found such a sympathetic, scholarly, and lucid chronicler in Margaret Collins Weitz." —Marilyn Yalom, author of Blood Sisters: The French Revolution in Women's Memory.

Lucie Aubrac (1912-2007), of Catholic and peasant background, was teaching history in a Lyon girls' school and newly married to Raymond, a Jewish engineer, when World War II broke out and divided France. The couple, living in the Vichy zone, soon joined the Resistance movement in opposition to the Nazis and their collaborators. Outwitting the Gestapo is Lucie's harrowing account of her participation in the Resistance: of the months when, though pregnant, she planned and took part in raids to free comrades—including her husband, under Nazi death sentence—from the prisons of Klaus Barbie, the infamous Butcher of Lyon. Her book is also the basis for the 1997 French movie, Lucie Aubrac, which was released in the United States in 1999.   Purchase the audio edition.

What effect did the two world wars have on the relations between women and men? Drawing on broad comparative material-from government policy to popular media, poetry and fiction, and personal letters-this book examines the redefinition of gender that occurred in many Western countries during both world wars. "A major addition to the literature on gender relations and war."-Helena Lewis, Women's Review of Books "One of the first, and certainly the most exciting, treatments of war as an event of gender politics."-Choice "A substantial contribution to the social history of this century."-Anne Summers, Times Literary Supplement "These essays powerfully demonstrate how much the world wars provided battlegrounds not only for nations but for the sexes."-Michael S. Sherry, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science "A work of lively, engaged scholarship.... This is an important contribution to current debates about war and human identity, war and political reality, war and transformative possibility."-Jean Bethke Elshtain