The Paris Game
Charles de Gaulle, the Liberation of Paris, and the Gamble that Won France
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- £6.99
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
At a crucial moment in the Second World War, an obscure French general reaches a fateful personal decision: to fight on alone after his government’s flight from Paris and its capitulation to Nazi Germany.
Amid the ravages of a world war, three men — a general, a president, and a prime minister — are locked in a rivalry that threatens their partnership and puts the world’s most celebrated city at risk of destruction before it can be liberated. This is the setting of The Paris Game, a dramatic recounting of how an obscure French general under sentence of death by his government launches on the most enormous gamble of his life: to fight on alone after his country’s capitulation to Nazi Germany. In a game of intrigue and double-dealing, Charles de Gaulle must struggle to retain the loyalty of Winston Churchill against the unforgiving opposition of Franklin Roosevelt and the traitorous manoeuvring of a collaborationist Vichy France. How he succeeds in restoring the honour of France and securing its place as a world power is the stuff of raw history, both stirring and engrossing.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This biography of Charles de Gaulle examines his military and political career, and his actions and accomplishments during and after the Second World War. Based on de Gaulle's personal reminiscences, letters, diaries, and official records, journalist and author Argyle (Kennedy After Dallas) re-examines the general's decisive role in the French Resistance, his leadership in political development of post-war France, and his pursuit of an independent foreign policy that strengthened the global economic and political influence of France. Argyle portrays him as a "transformative figure of the twentieth century," whose ideas are largely shared by the French people today. He led the country in the time of war and political turmoil. According to the author, de Gaulle's policies were often driven by spontaneous decision-making, but whenever he played a wild card, he always played it well. History has proved that he had made "right decisions on all his major challenges," Argyle argues. Engaging, well-written and well-reseached, this is a book that can satisfy both the academic mind and amateur curiosity.
