{"title":"Books by Julian Jackson","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780199254576","title":"France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944","description":"The French call them 'the Dark Years'...This definitive new history of Occupied France explores the myths and realities of four of the most divisive years in French history.Taking in ordinary people's experiences of defeat, collaboration, resistance, and liberation, it uncovers the conflicting memories of occupation which ensure that even today France continues to debate the legacy of the Vichy years.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201586888882,"sku":"9780199254576","price":25.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780199254576.jpg?v=1786012397"},{"product_id":"9780141049533","title":"A Certain Idea of France","description":"\u003cb\u003eWinner of the Duff Cooper Prize for History\u003cbr\u003eA \u003ci\u003eSUNDAY TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eTHE TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN, SPECTATOR, FINANCIAL TIMES, TLS\u003c\/i\u003e BOOK OF THE YEAR\u003cbr\u003e'Masterly ... awesome reading ... an outstanding biography' Max Hastings, \u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn six weeks in the early summer of 1940, France was over-run by German troops and quickly surrendered. The French government of Marshal Pétain sued for peace and signed an armistice. One little-known junior French general, refusing to accept defeat, made his way to England. On 18 June he spoke to his compatriots over the BBC, urging them to rally to him in London. 'Whatever happens, the flame of French resistance must not be extinguished and will not be extinguished.' At that moment, Charles de Gaulle entered into history.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor the rest of the war, de Gaulle frequently bit the hand that fed him. He insisted on being treated as the true embodiment of France, and quarrelled violently with Churchill and Roosevelt. He was prickly, stubborn, aloof and self-contained. But through sheer force of personality and bloody-mindedness he managed to have France recognised as one of the victorious Allies, occupying its own zone in defeated Germany. For ten years after 1958 he was President of France's Fifth Republic, which he created and which endures to this day. His pursuit of 'a certain idea of France' challenged American hegemony, took France out of NATO and twice vetoed British entry into the European Community. His controversial decolonization of Algeria brought France to the brink of civil war and provoked several assassination attempts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJulian Jackson's magnificent biography reveals this the life of this titanic figure as never before. It draws on a vast range of published and unpublished memoirs and documents - including the recently opened de Gaulle archives - to show how de Gaulle achieved so much during the War when his resources were so astonishingly few, and how, as President, he put a medium-rank power at the centre of world affairs. No previous biography has depicted his paradoxes so vividly. Much of French politics since his death has been about his legacy, and he remains by far the greatest French leader since Napoleon.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43406087880882,"sku":"9780141049533","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141049533.jpg?v=1786011187"},{"product_id":"9780141993096","title":"France on Trial","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the Duff Cooper Prize 2023\u003cbr\u003eA \u003ci\u003eTelegraph\u003c\/i\u003e Book of the Year\u003cbr\u003eA \u003ci\u003eTimes\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eSpectator \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eProspect\u003c\/i\u003e Book of the Year\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne of the great contemporary historians of France\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003eon one of\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003ethe most controversial periods of twentieth-century French history\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFew 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJulian 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 \u003ci\u003eFrance on Trial\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44581222219954,"sku":"9780141993096","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141993096_4a5fba3e-c2f7-4371-b872-195aacea6a47.jpg?v=1786011355"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-julian-jackson.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}