World Wars All books
Laurent Douzou
Disobedience History of the Liberation Movement
Not everybody in the world become a Pétainist after the debacle and not all the resistance movements were infiltrated by communists working for the benefit of Moscow. Drawing upon numerous archives, Laurent Dazou explains why several men and women as diverse as a freewheeling navy officer, a normalien philosopher obsessed with maths, a young militant communist from the Latin Quarter and a founding banker from an anti-Semetic league, refused to crack under pressure, joining the ranks of disenchantment, and learning to resist by organizing themselves to fight and to blaze the trail of disobedience. Laurent Douzou is a specialist in the history of the Resistance.
Sophie Delaporte
Saturday 22 August 1914 A Doctor at War
The bloodiest day in France’s history as it was lived by a doctor in the Great War
Centre International de Recherche de l’Historial de la Grande Guerre
The Great War in Every Direction
Topics on a human scale, which reveal the face of the war as presented to those who fought and those who lived through it.
Jacques Cantier
Algeria Under the Vichy Regime
On 25 June 1940, both the Franco-German and Franco-Italian Armistice came into effect. In Algeria, appeals to carry on the struggle in Frances colonial empire no longer served any purpose. The Vichy regime, which came into existence following the parliamentary vote of 10 July 1940, was thus able to extend its rule over Algeria. Claiming to be at the head of a National Revolution which would create a new Man and fight against the forces of Anti-France, the Vichy government was able to flourish until the Anglo-American landings in North Africa in 1942. The author has given us a thorough review of this little-known period. This is not just a historical parenthesis as the study of the consequences of the National Revolution in Frances colonies casts a new light on the discussion about the nature and actions of the Vichy regime. It also illuminates a frequently concealed stage in the development of colonial society, which had had to confront a growing number of internal difficulties since the 1930s. Jacques Cantier is a lecturer at the University of Toulouse-Le-Mirail.
Raymond Aubrac
Where the memory lingers
Discreet by nature and secretive by necessity, Raymond Aubrac has been closely involved in more than half a century of history, in France and abroad. Within France, he is one of the great figures of the Resistance, and is one of the last survivors of the meeting at Caluire, on June 21st 1943, in the course of which Jean Moulin was arrested. A confidant of Ho Chi Minh, Raymond Aubrac also played a central role in the secret negotiations which accompanied the Vietnam war. In this book he gives a new, personal account of these events and others, including his meeting with de Gaulle, his role in the reconstruction of France, and his work at the heart of the UN.
