- Hardcover: 372 pages
- Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd; First Edition edition (5 July 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0340766778
- ISBN-13: 978-0340766774
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 13.7 x 3.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 621,201 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Wine and War
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
According to Don and Petie Kladstrup in Wine & War: the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure, it was a well-known fact that Adolf Hitler did not like wine. Still, their leader's teetotalism notwithstanding, the Germans showed no distaste for French wine when they invaded France in 1940. Indeed, one of the first acts of the occupying army was to seize great stores of wine, sending tens of thousands of barrels to the Third Reich and ordering the conversion of thousands of hectares of vineyards into war production. Some French vintners, the Kladstrups write in this enjoyable study, went along with orders. Many others, however, including the heads of distinguished houses like Moe¨t et Chandon, engaged in daring and dangerous acts of resistance wherever they could. Some lied about their yields; others built false walls to hide precious vintages; and still others concocted elaborate ruses, such as sprinkling carpet dust into inferior grades of new wine to give it a musty, distinguished flavour. Not every German was fooled, and some partisans of the grape died for their troubles. But some Germans, at considerable risk to themselves, also looked the other way. The Kladstrups fill their pages with memories of the wine war from both sides of the struggle, stories sometimes sombre, sometimes amusing, that commemorate those "whose love of the grape and devotion to a way of life helped them survive and triumph over one of the darkest and most difficult chapters in French history". --Gregory McNamee
Evening Standard
'A sprightly and amusing book, full of spicy anecdotes'
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I really enjoyed this book - great day-in-the-life and historical perspectives of the French and France during wartime. Particularly amusing to read about French forces determining which soldiers should attack through excellent vineyards (themselves) and which would attack through lesser ones (everyone else)...
Highly enjoyable.
Highly enjoyable.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I enjoyed this book immensely. It was factual and informative and despite being set in depressing times, an underlying humour and deviance is never far from the surface. The book is perfect for amateur wine buffs (like me) and amateur historians (like me) who are interested in daily life during World War Two. The ingenuity of the French was amazing but, after all, they were protecting their greatest asset. By the end of this book Vichy france does not come out too well but at least france lived to fight another day with her vineyards pretty much intact. Vive La France.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is an amusing, but poignant account of how the French wine industry coped with the Nazi occupation (the telegrams from the French station master to his German superior had me laughing out loud!). Despite the humour it stills manages to convey the fear and hardships which were imposed on the people of France. It reads almost like a novel but each chapter is based upon interviews with the people involved. If you want an 'academic' study this is not for you, but for people who enjoy their history in a more 'relaxed' style I highly recommend this.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Was this review helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Bottled
This is a pretty good account of what happened in and around the French wine industry in the early to mid 1940's. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Ian Millard
Dramatic and interesting angle on the French Ressistance during WWII
A fascinating angle on WWII. Perhaps it is not surprising that wine became a battlefield over which the French chose to ressist the Nazi ocupation. Short, enjoyable and easy read.
Published on 6 Jan 2010 by R. Fried
Revealing review of a small part of French resistance
Fascinating read about the desperate position the French vineyard owners found themselves in during the Second World War. Read more
Published on 5 July 2008 by John Holland
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biography > Historical > 1901 Onwards
- Books > Biography > Historical > Countries & Regions > Europe
- Books > Biography > Historical > Countries & Regions > France
- Books > Biography > War & Espionage > World War II
- Books > Food & Drink
- Books > History > Europe > France
- Books > History > Military History
- Books > History > World History > World War II 1939-1945 > Battles & Campaigns
- Books > History > World History > World War II 1939-1945 > Biographies & Memoirs
- Books > History > World History > World War II 1939-1945 > Origins
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
