The Fall of France in 1940 is one of the pivotal moments of the twentieth century. If the German invasion of France had failed, it is arguable that the war might have ended right there. But the French suffered instead a dramatic and humiliating defeat, a loss that ultimately drew the whole world into war. This exciting new book by Julian Jackson, a leading historian of twentieth-century France, charts the breathtakingly rapid events that led...
I won't attempt to repeat information outlined in the exceptional previous reviews. This book provides a good companion to Ernest R. May's STANGE VICTORY Hill & Wang 2000. Although of the two, I find this book more interesting in that the author covers all aspects of French society as well as the impact of the defeat and how it was handled. He points out both the French and the British anticipated a long war, but they expected...
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This is an unusually good, short, very readable history of a difficult and contentious event, to which justice has not previously been done. I have read the usual accounts in the general histories (Churchill, Liddell Hart, Keegan and others) of the Second World War, as well as Shirer's "The Collapse of the Third Republic: An Inquiry into the Fall of France in 1940", and none of them compare with Jackson's book. He has a...
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It is difficult to better the comments in the other five-star reviews of this book, but I'll try: This is how historical accounts should be written: with care, attention to detail, faithfulness to sources, originality of ideas and an exciting writing style. I've read quite a lot about this period and these events but I was delighted by the many new things I learned. All theses are balanced and fair, and the author has a non-intrusive...
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Much has been written about various aspects of World War II, but books continue to come out. Some do re-evaluations using new information, some take a different look at old information and try to show it in a new light. Julian Jackson has written a very interesting book on the German invasion of France in 1940, called (simply enough) The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940. In it, Jackson attempts to show his version...
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Julian Jackson comes to an interesting thesis in that it was the strategic mistakes and flawed organization of the French army and not the corrupt Third Republic that was reponsible for the French defeat in 1940. Julian supports his point by stating that the British were just as passive as the French in the thirites and the Germans were reluntctant to go to war in 1939, and lacked trucks and ground support planes needed for...
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