It's definitely a particular kind of history with its own perspective, but it's so my thing and I loved it and I will write about it soon.

Whilst an interesting period the book does not really provide a revealing analysis. Events and personalities are mentioned without context or attempt to provide a narrative or an understanding of what happened. A lot of references are made to the same relatively short list of books written at that time. So all in all quite a lazy work that just summarises what has already been written without adding anything new.

Antony Beevor has for some time been my favoured WW 2 historian. I had looked forward to reading this book & now it is over I feel more like I have flicked through a shopping list than read an authorative & meaningful interpretation of a significant period in post war Europe.

Possibly my favorite book of history I've read. This book is not riddled with politics and dates and clutter -- though it does provide an excellent education about the political complexity of postwar France (and the US, as a result). What it really does is portray a nation was actually like in that time of freedom and conflict: what people wore, what they ate and drank, where the best jazz could be found, where the intellectuals and artists congregated, who took which lovers and what scandal res...

“Paris After Liberation” is not just a book about a city, it is a gallant effort to draw the portrait of a society in transition from extreme conditions of a ruthless occupation and national confusion to the stability of normality and prosperity. Although historians talk much about the early years of 1940's and the war efforts, few have studied the later years of that most eventful decade, whose end witnessed the start of the cold war and a new chapter in global history. “Paris After liberation”...

The fascinating story of Paris, a centre of world cultural and intellectual life, both under the Nazi occupation and afterwards. The authors give a vivid portrayal of the class divides in French politics and society. We read of the collaboration of some conservatives with Vichy, and in some cases their enthusiastic participation in Nazi atrocities. The post war world saw them lose their place to be replaced in many cases, if not all, by those who participated in resistance.The Communist Party (P...

This is a multifaceted story of a city (in some ways a whole country) starting to rebuild its government and finding ways to resume its vibrant culture. The book encompasses how the liberation effected all strata of French society including artists, writers, government ministers, authors, diplomats, Communists, Gaullists, and Petainists.While reading this story; the reader gets to know what was behind a historic decision of the French government in one chapter, then gets a description of a criti...

An utterly interesting and compelling book. Well-researched and highly illuminating, full of interesting facts as well as juicy titbits from the life and intrigues of contemporary French (and emigré) writers, thinkers and artists living in Paris, from Sartre and Beauvoir to Mauriac and Camus, from Picasso to Derain and from Arletty to Yves Montand, "collabos" (or suspects) and "résistants" ,aristocrats and Comummunsts, everything and everybody else in-between, while also faithfully chronicling t...

There are so many good books on this subject that I would not bother with this one. I don't understand even the approach to the subject matter. Chapter 1 is about Petain and De Gaulle; 2 is The Paths of Collaboration and resistence. And so on. There is little if any carry over from one chapter to another. It's as if they had no mannequin to tack their story on to. Or that they just randomly started up new chapters when they had something they wanted to get into. I expected them to concentrate on...

DNF. Too confusing and boring.

I bought this book after reading 'Suite Francaise' and being intrigued by France under the Occupation. I have also read Beevor's Stalingrad and Berlin, both of which were absorbing.This book has been very much in the 'can't put down' class. It would be easy to expect that the minutiae of post-war French politics would be both boring and confusing, but the writing style saves us. And by interspersing chapters on social matters such as fashion, theatre and lifestyles, the reader is drawn through t...

It's ironic that a book that's partly about collaboration should itself be a terrific example of collaboration between the husband and wife team of Antony Beevor and Artemis Cooper. Who dealt with what aspects of life in Paris between 1944 and 1949 I neither know nor care. The book covers, in gripping fashion, the revenge on the collaborators, the political turmoil, the cultural history of the period with writers like Sartre and painters like Picasso prominent, the re-birth of Paris fashion (Dio...

I cannot stress how important this book is in understanding the zeitgeist of Paris, France, and Europe after the war. A must read for anyone who wants a stronger understanding on how the trends and wants of our generation are the way they are.

Fascinating survey of French history, politics, and culture from the last year of World War II to the start of the Marshall Plan. Many excerpts from contemporary letters, diaries, and articles are seamlessly integrated throughout the book , giving the narrative a lively immediacy.

Seventy years after Paris was liberated and the subsequent end of World War II, it's easy to forget the bitter divisions that existed in France. France's surrender at the beginning of the war led to the Vichy government under Petain which collaborated with the German occupiers,, but there was a burgeoning resistance movement which was itself divided into factions On one side were the communists, strong in France from before the war, and on the other, the government-in-exile led by Charles de Gau...

I will start by saying I did not know much about the politics of France (and still don't know much), must of the reading I have done on France has been regarding the battles fought on French soil during the two world wars.This book as the title suggests talks about what happened after the battles when the city of Paris was liberated and the effects that the liberation had on the people and city and France in general.This book was interesting for the most part, there were sections that I lost int...

Paris. Paris outraged, Paris broken, Paris martyred, but Paris liberated! Liberated by herself, liberated by her people, with the help of the whole France, that is to say of the France which fights, the true France, eternal France.

The book in itself is absolutely enthralling. I’ve been a fan of Beevor’s nonfiction prose since I came across a paperback copy of his Berlin – a signed copy, no less! (Sadly a bit worn) – at my now-defunct Dutch auction haunt some years ago. So this one has been on my internal “must-read”-list for quite some time now.Add to this the contributions of his wife, the always entertaining Artemis Cooper, and you have a very solid constellation.Now, I’ve never fancied myself an expert on post-war Fran...

Everybody knows about Normandy and the occupation and the horrible days of the war, but not many speak about the days after, the reconstruction, the political atmosphere and the difficulties of the everyday lives after the most horrible war in history. So this is the French angel of the days and years after the war, the intelligence, the existentialists celebrities, the political traitors and their trials, diplomats and central figures in the days that shaped the fourth republic of De Gaul.Anton...

AFP, CGT, MRP, CNE...This book uses a lot of acronyms, but there is no list where to check what they mean. They are not featured in the index either, so during the reading I have been lost many times. Eventually I just gave up trying to understand. There are also very many people mentioned and I kept forgetting who was who. You can find the people in the index, at least, but it is a thick book, so I got tired of checking too.Judging by the cover I thought Beevor would have concentrated on the li...