France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain

By:

Sign Up Now! Already a Member? Log In
You must be logged into UK education collection to access this title. Learn about membership options, or view our freely available titles.

Synopsis
Winner of the Duff Cooper Prize 2023A Telegraph Book of the YearA Times, Spectator and Prospect Book of the YearOne of the great contemporary historians of France on one of the most controversial periods of twentieth-century French historyFew images more shocked the French population during the Occupation than the photograph of Marshal Philippe Pétain - the great French hero of the First World War - shaking the hand of Hitler on 20 October 1940. In a radio speech after this meeting, Pétain told the French people that he was 'entering down the road of collaboration'. He ended with the words: 'This is my policy. My ministers are responsible to me. It is I alone who will be judged by History.' Five years later, in July 1945, the hour of judgement - if not yet the judgement of History - arrived. Pétain was brought before a specially created High Court to answer for his conduct between the signing of the armistice with Germany in June 1940 and the Liberation of France in August 1944.Julian Jackson uses Pétain's three-week trial as a lens through which to examine the central crisis of twentieth-century French history - the defeat of 1940, the signing of the armistice and Vichy's policy of collaboration - what the main prosecutor Mornet called 'four years to erase from our history'. As head of the Vichy regime in the Second, Pétain became one of France's most notorious public figures, and the lightening-rod for collective guilt and retribution immediately after the Second World War. In France on Trial Jackson blends politics and personal drama to explore how different national factions sought to try to claim the past, or establish their interpretation of it, as a way of claiming the present and future.
Copyright:
2023

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
Book Size:
416 Pages
ISBN-13:
9780241450277
Related ISBNs:
9780241450253, 9780141993096, 9780241650028
Publisher:
Penguin Books Ltd
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
Julian Jackson
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
History, Military, Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs, Law, Legal Issues and Ethics, Politics and Government
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

Reviews

No Rating Yet