De Gaulle and twentieth-century France

Hugh Gough, John Horne

A man of undeviating principle or a modern Machiavelli? De Gaulle has never been short of detractors or supporters. This book traces the career of a man legendary for his abrasiveness, yet able to command the deepest loyalty, whose 30 years of political prominence have left an indelible mark on modern France. The various stages of his career are examined by leading French and British historians (often making the work of the French historians accessible in English for the first time). The proclamation of a Free France in 1940 is seen as the fundamental legitimizing event of de Gaulle's career, giving him the authority nearly 20 years later to resolve the Algerian crisis. Between those two events lay the triumph of Liberation, leadership of the postwar provisional government, resignation and the wilderness years of the Fourth Republic. The Algerian crisis was the occasion for de...

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