Winner of the Duff Cooper Prize Winner of the Elizabeth Longford Prize A New Yorker, Financial Times, Spectator, Times, and Telegraph Book of the Year
In this definitive biography of the mythic general who refused to accept the Nazi domination of France, Julian Jackson captures Charles de Gaulle as never before. Drawing on unpublished letters, memoirs, and papers from the recently opened de Gaulle archive, he shows how this volatile visionary of staunch faith and conservative beliefs infuriated Churchill, challenged American hegemony, recognized the limitations of colonial ambitions in Algeria and Vietnam, and put a broken France back at the center of world affairs.
“With a fluent style and near-total command of existing and newly available sources…Julian Jackson has come closer than anyone before him to demystifying this conservative at war with the status quo, for whom national interests were inseparable from personal honor.” —Richard Norton Smith, Wall Street Journal
“A sweeping-yet-concise introduction to the most brilliant, infuriating, and ineffably French of men.” —Ross Douthat, New York Times
“Classically composed and authoritative…Jackson writes wonderful political history.” —Adam Gopnik, New Yorker
“A remarkable book in which the man widely chosen as the Greatest Frenchman is dissected, intelligently and lucidly, then put together again in an extraordinary fair-minded, highly readable portrait. Throughout, the book tells a thrilling story.” —Antonia Fraser, New Statesman
“Makes awesome reading, and is a tribute to the fascination of its subject, and to Jackson’s mastery of it…A triumph, and hugely readable.” —Max Hastings, Sunday Times
Julian Jackson is a leading historian of twentieth-century France.
Table of Contents
Cover Title Copyright Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Maps Introduction Part One: De Gaulle before ‘De Gaulle’, 1890–1940 Chapter 1. Beginnings, 1890–1908 Chapter 2. ‘A Regret That will Never Leave Me’, 1908–1918 Chapter 3. Rebuilding a Career, 1919–1932 Chapter 4. Making a Mark, 1932–1939 Chapter 5. The Battle of France, September 1939–June 1940 Part Two: Exile, 1940–1944 Chapter 6. Rebellion, 1940 Chapter 7. Survival, 1941 Chapter 8. Inventing Gaullism Chapter 9. On the World Stage, September 1941–June 1942 Chapter 10. Fighting France, July–October 1942 Chapter 11. Power Struggles, November 1942–November 1943 Chapter 12. Building a State in Exile, July 1943–May 1944 Chapter 13. Liberation, June–August 1944 Part Three: In and Out of Power, 1944–1958 Chapter 14. In Power, August 1944–May 1945 Chapter 15. From Liberator to Saviour, May 1945–December 1946 Chapter 16. The New Messiah, 1947–1955 Chapter 17. In the ‘Desert’, 1955–1958 Chapter 18. The 18 Brumaire of Charles de Gaulle, February–June 1958 Chapter 19. Président du Conseil, June–December 1958 Part Four: Republican Monarch, 1959–1965 Chapter 20. ‘This Affair Which Absorbs and Paralyses Us’, 1959–1962 Chapter 21. Turning Point, 1962 Chapter 22. The Pursuit of Grandeur, 1959–1963 Chapter 23. Going Global, 1963–1964 Chapter 24. Modernizing Monarch, 1959–1964 Chapter 25. Half-Time, 1965 Part Five: Towards the End, 1966–1970 Chapter 26. Upsetting the Applecart, 1966–1967 Chapter 27. Diminishing Returns Chapter 28. Revolution, 1968 Chapter 29. The End, June 1968–November 1970 Chapter 30. Myth, Legacy and Achievement Bibliographical Note Biographies Notes Index
