‘A clear-eyed, ambitious and myth-busting account that places the Fall of France in 1940 and De Gaulle’s Free French in a wider scenario that sees Vichy France and its colonial empire as a serious military player down to 1942. A tour de force by a historian who is a master of his craft.’
Robert Gildea – author of Fighters in the Shadows: A New History of the French Resistance
Book description
Defeat and Division is an excellent account of France at War from 1939 to 1942.
This is the first volume he details France’s 1940 collapse, the reality of occupation under the Vichy collaboration, and the rise of Charles de Gaulle’s Free France.
He recounts France’s struggles to reconstruct its military power that crumbled into Vichy collaboration, how its forces split into warring factions and describe the occupation by the Axis.
This book goes into great detail about the intense arguments over the reasons for the 1940 debacle and how the war consumed the country affecting all areas of life, splitting families and communities and polarizing political opinion as they struggled to come to terms with the humiliation of occupation.
Here is a link to an episode of the We Have Ways, Podcast in which they discus and review this book. Well worth a listen. – About 6 minutes.
On a more general note, I thoroughly recommend the We Have Ways Podcast for anyone interested in the history of WW2