by Robert Gildea
Belknap Press
11/30/2015, hardcover
SKU: 9780674286108
The French Resistance has an iconic status in the struggle to liberate Nazi-occupied Europe, but its story is entangled in myths. Gaining a true understanding of the Resistance means recognizing how its image has been carefully curated through a combination of French politics and pride, ever since jubilant crowds celebrated Paris's liberation in August 1944. Robert Gildea's penetrating history of resistance in France during World War II sweeps aside "the French Resistance" of a thousand clichés, showing that much more was at stake than freeing a single nation from Nazi tyranny.
As Fighters in the Shadows makes clear, French resistance was part of a Europe-wide struggle against fascism, carried out by an extraordinarily diverse group: not only French men and women but Spanish Republicans, Italian anti-fascists, French and foreign Jews, British and American agents, and even German opponents of Hitler. In France, resistance skirted the edge of civil war between right and left, pitting non-communists who wanted to drive out the Germans and eliminate the Vichy regime while avoiding social revolution at all costs against communist advocates of national insurrection. In French colonial Africa and the Near East, battle was joined between de Gaulle's Free French and forces loyal to Vichy before they combined to liberate France.
Based on a riveting reading of diaries, memoirs, letters, and interviews of contemporaries, Fighters in the Shadows gives authentic voice to the resisters themselves, revealing the diversity of their struggles for freedom in the darkest hours of occupation and collaboration.
Reviews:
"Scrupulous, evenhanded reconsideration of the fighters of the French Resistance and how the patriotic myth became central to the identity of postwar France. Employing a refreshing approach to the history of this traumatic epoch by sticking with firsthand testimony, both written and oral, Gildea restores some of the marginalized voices so crucial to the story: women, communists, and foreigners...Gildea proceeds step by step in the buildup to resistance, which required both an internal and external network, especially from de Gaulle's Allied base in London. Moreover, the liberation by the Americans of North Africa in November 1942 proved to be the 'hinge' in galvanizing resistance and clarifying the Vichy versus Free French struggle. A masterly, painstakingly researched study incorporating the urgent stories of the resisters themselves." -- Kirkus Reviews, starred review
"An important new book...[Gildea] blends top-down history with the bottom-up stories of those who schemed, improvised, grabbed chances and risked their lives." -- The Economist
About the Author:
Robert Gildea is Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford.