The Last Great Frenchman: A Life of General de Gaulle

New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1993. First Edition. First Printing. good, good. 544, illus., footnotes, notes, select bibliography, index, minor wear and soiling to DJ, some soiling and staining to edges. Following France's rapid capitulation to Nazi forces, Charles de Gaulle alone stood for a France undefeated and still fighting. Through sheer force of will, he made himself heard, rescuing French dignity and insuring that at the end of World War II France would be among the victorious armies, her status as a world power recognized. It was an immense achievement, one that only a man of de Gaulle's raw nerve, stubbornness, arrogance, and messianic conviction could have accomplished. Though he had virtually no resources and commanded only a few thousand men, he insisted that Britain and America treat France as an equal. His relationship with Churchill was stormy in the extreme but based on a strong mutual admiration; with Roosevelt his relationship was icy. Nonetheless he achieved his goal: France took her place among the Big Five nations in the postwar world. The man who had been sentenced to death as a traitor by the Vichy government returned to France in 1944 a hero and a legend, soon to beelected president. In 1946 de Gaulle shocked the world by resigning. When he stepped back into the political arena twelve years later, it was to onceagain save a France in crisis. With the adroit maneuvering of a political mastermind he extricated France from Algeria and pulled the country back from the brink of civil war.