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Review
"Even well-informed readers will come away from Vinen's social history with a deeper knowledge of what it was like to live in France during the German occupation. It turns out in his wide-ranging account that it was much bleaker than what we had supposed."-Robert Wohl, author of "The Spectacle of Flight: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1920-1950."
-- Robert Wohl
-- Robert Wohl
Scotsman
`An utterly absorbing, eye-opening account'
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First Sentence
In June 1940 Raymond Aron was in a British army barracks in Aldershot. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
In June 1940 Raymond Aron was in a British army barracks in Aldershot. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The Unfree French covers the most important aspects of life under the German occupation - collaboration and resistance, keeping body and soul together under severe restrictions, and so on. It also describes subjects less often touched on in books on the topic: emotional relationships between French men and women, French and Germans, the changing position of women in society, the sufferings (or not) of the two million-odd French prisoners of war in Germany, town-country relations.
Overall, a very good history of the times, full of new archival material that always illustrates the dilemmas of life under occupation. Like Robert Gildea's 'Marianne in Chains", Mr Vinen's book draws very much on regional archives and masters and doctoral theses from regional universities. While this provides fascinating content, it tends to reduce events in Paris to a mere sideshow in some ways. This was slightly disappointing, which explains the four stars; otherwise, the book is easily a five-star success.
Overall, a very good history of the times, full of new archival material that always illustrates the dilemmas of life under occupation. Like Robert Gildea's 'Marianne in Chains", Mr Vinen's book draws very much on regional archives and masters and doctoral theses from regional universities. While this provides fascinating content, it tends to reduce events in Paris to a mere sideshow in some ways. This was slightly disappointing, which explains the four stars; otherwise, the book is easily a five-star success.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The excellence of this book on occupied France lies in the author's skill in creating order out of the chaos of factors that confronted the French against each other. Degrees of collaboration, degrees of resistance, living in a city, living in an agricultural region,living in the Free Zone, living in the occupied zone, age, sex, (and sex), and of course Jewishness and attitudes towards it. In spite of being minutely documented and written in a rather impersonal tone, this remains a very readable account of a society split in so many ways against itself. The impersonal tone lets the facts, some of them horrific, speak for themselves.
I did expect to find more mention of the Resistance, which remains largely off-stage. But no doubt there is already an enormous literature on that subject - and perhaps they counted as "free French"?.
Essential reading for anyone interested in war-time Europe.
I did expect to find more mention of the Resistance, which remains largely off-stage. But no doubt there is already an enormous literature on that subject - and perhaps they counted as "free French"?.
Essential reading for anyone interested in war-time Europe.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book gives a good overview of circumstances effecting different sections of French society through the years of the occupation. Through largely statistical evidence it provides a history which tends to read very dryly and does not give the reader an emotional overview or development of general life through the occupation. Of course this is a very complex issue and each individual would have had their own experience; making it impossible to stereotype a typical experience, however this particular publication does prove to be a little too 'academic' to be classed as enjoyable. In terms of giving statistical evidence to support his work, Vinen does very well, but unfortunately these statistics make the book rather less readable than the work of Ian Ousby which I would recommend over this particular publication.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Insightful and readable
Vinen is an insightful historian, full of ideas, rather than a plodding journeyman of an historian. He also has a very readable writing style and an excellent choice of anecdote. Read more
Published on 3 May 2010 by S. K. A. Kitson
A good book about the France's occupation
In my opinion this book is a good introduction about the German ocupation in France. It explain briefly several aspects of this ocupation, colaboration, resistance and the living... Read more
Published on 5 Jan 2010 by Eduardo Santamaria
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