World War II (1931-1945)
“The Second World War presented a mirror to the human condition which blinded anyone who looked into it.” — Norman Mailer, “The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster” (1957)
Of the endless ocean of books on the Second World War, we have dozens and dozens of new and carefully chosen titles. I define it as beginning with the Japanese Empire’s invasion of Manchuria and ending with not only V-E and V-J Days but also the immediate crises of displaced people, the Soviet Union’s creation of the Iron Curtain, and the growing revelations of the extent of the Holocaust.
In significant ways the Second World War was the defining crucible of the 20th Century. The First World War was prelude, the legacy of the 19th Century’s imperialism, and the Cold War was the sequel. Of the making of books about it there is no end — but the persistence of good research and good writing, and good publication underscores the war’s centrality of the world we live in today and the world our descendents will live in for the foreseeable future.
France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Petain
France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Petain
For three weeks in July 1945 all eyes were fixed on a humid Paris, where France’s disgraced former head of state was on trial, accused of masterminding a plot to overthrow democracy. Would Philippe Pétain, hero of Verdun, be condemned as the traitor of Vichy?
In the terrible month of October 1940, few things were more shocking than the sight of Marshal Philippe Pétain—supremely decorated hero of the First World War, now head of the French government—shaking hands with Hitler. Pausing to look at the cameras, Pétain announced that France would henceforth collaborate with Germany. “This is my policy,” he intoned. “My ministers are responsible to me. It is I alone who will be judged by History.”
Five years later, in July 1945, after a wave of violent reprisals following the liberation of Paris, Pétain was put on trial for his conduct during the war. He stood accused of treason, charged with heading a conspiracy to destroy France’s democratic government and collaborating with Nazi Germany. The defense claimed he had sacrificed his personal honor to save France and insisted he had shielded the French people from the full scope of Nazi repression. Former resisters called for the death penalty, but many identified with this conservative military hero who had promised peace with dignity.
The award-winning author of a landmark biography of Charles de Gaulle, Julian Jackson uses Pétain’s three-week trial as a lens through which to examine one of history’s great moral dilemmas. Was the policy of collaboration “four years to erase from our history,” as the prosecution claimed? Or was it, as conservative politicians insist to this day, a sacrifice that placed pragmatism above moral purity? As head of the Vichy regime, Pétain became the lightning rod for collective guilt and retribution. But he has also been an icon of the nationalist right ever since. In France on Trial, Jackson blends courtroom drama, political intrigue, and brilliant narrative history to highlight the hard choices and moral compromises leaders make in times of war.
Julian Jackson is Professor of History, Emeritus, at Queen Mary University of London and one of the foremost experts on twentieth-century France. His De Gaulle won the Duff Cooper Prize and Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography, among other awards, and was a New Yorker, Financial Times, Spectator, Times, and Telegraph Book of the Year. His previous books include France: The Dark Years, 1940–1944, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and The Fall of France, which won the Wolfson History Prize. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, Commandeur de l’Ordre des Palmes académiques, and Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.