Taking Paris
The Epic Battle for the City of Lights
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From Martin Dugard, the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of the Killing series with Bill O’Reilly, comes the spellbinding story of the Allied liberation of Paris from the grip of the Nazis during World War II
“Taking Paris does for Paris during World War II what The Splendid and the Vile did for London.”—James Patterson • “Heroes and villains abound. You’ll enjoy this fast-paced book immensely.”—Bill O’Reilly • “Succeeds triumphantly.”—The Washington Post
May 1940: The world is stunned as Hitler's forces invade France with a devastating blitzkrieg aimed at Paris. Within weeks, the French government has collapsed, and the City of Lights, revered for its carefree lifestyle, intellectual freedom, and love of liberty, has fallen under Nazi control—perhaps forever.
As the Germans ruthlessly crush all opposition, a patriotic band of Parisians known as the Resistance secretly rise up to fight back. But these young men and women cannot do it alone. Over 120,000 Parisians die under German occupation. Countless more are tortured in the city's Gestapo prisons and sent to death camps. The longer the Nazis hold the city, the greater the danger its citizens face. As the armies of America and Great Britain prepare to launch the greatest invasion in history, the spies of the Resistance risk all to ensure the Germans are defeated and Paris is once again free.
The players holding the fate of Paris in their hands are some of the biggest historical figures of the era: Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, General George S. Patton, and the exiled French general Charles de Gaulle, headquartered in London's Connaught Hotel. From the fall of Paris in 1940 to the race for Paris in 1944, this riveting, page-turning drama unfolds through their decisions—for better and worse. Taking Paris is history told at a breathtaking pace, a sprawling yet intimate saga of heroism, desire, and personal sacrifice for all that is right.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dugard, coauthor of the Killing series with Bill O'Reilly, delivers a stirring history of the fight to retake Paris after it fell to German forces in June 1940. Breathlessly recounting artillery duels, espionage campaigns, tank and naval battles, and bombing raids, Dugard profiles a mix of prominent and lesser-known figures, including U.S. ambassador to France William Christian Bullitt Jr.; underground operatives Virginia Hall, Jean Moulin, and Germaine Tillion; and Catholic priest and Nazi collaborator Fr. Robert Alesch, who infiltrated the French Resistance. While some theaters of combat on the road to Paris are only briefly sketched or ignored, Dugard spares no grisly detail when it comes to the persecution of the city's Jews and the Gestapo's torture of captured Resistance fighters. The treatment of Charles de Gaulle is more nuanced than is usual for Anglophone accounts, and Dugard provides an enlightening deep dive into the 1942 Battle of Bir Hakeim in Libya, where de Gaulle's Free French troops first fought the Nazis "on their own." Throughout, cinematic details evoke the despair of the city's capture and the euphoria of its liberation, when peals of church bells and crowds singing the French national anthem celebrated the arrival of French and American armored divisions. WWII buffs will be enthralled.
