The Unfree French: Life Under the Occupation |
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Richard Vinen
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Pages: 496 (Paperback)
ISBN: 0140296840
Pub: Penguin Books Ltd
Pub date: 2007-04-26
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 8792
Reader Reviews:
Excellent wide-ranging history of France's 'Dark Years' (8/8 people found this helpful)
The Unfree French covers the most important aspects of life under the German occupation - collaboration and resistance, keeping body and soul together under severe restrictions, and so on. It also describes subjects less often touched on in books on the topic: emotional relationships between French men and women, French and Germans, the changing position of women in society, the sufferings (or not) of the two million-odd French prisoners of war in Germany, town-country relations.
Overall, a very good history of the times, full of new archival material that always illustrates the dilemmas of life under occupation. Like Robert Gildea's 'Marianne in Chains", Mr Vinen's book draws very much on regional archives and masters and doctoral theses from regional universities. While this provides fascinating content, it tends to reduce events in Paris to a mere sideshow in some ways. This was slightly disappointing, which explains the four stars; otherwise, the book is easily a five-star success.
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Categories
Amazon.co.uk places this book into the following categories:
Books -> Subjects -> History -> World History -> World War II 1939-1945 -> Origins
Books -> Subjects -> History -> Social & Economic History
Books -> Subjects -> History -> General
Books -> Refinements -> Language (feature_browse-bin) -> English