Awards

• Long-listed for American Library in Paris Book Award 2023 (United States)
• Short-listed for American Library in Paris Book Award 2023 (United States)
• Winner of Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize 2023 (United States)

Overview

A Telegraph, Spectator, Prospect, and Times Best Book of the Year “Enthralling.”―Geoffrey Wheatcroft, New York Review of Books “This is a story not just about Pétain but about war and resistance, the moral compromises of leadership, and the meaning of France itself.”―Margaret MacMillan For three weeks in July 1945 all eyes were fixed on Paris, where France’s former head of state was on trial. Would Philippe Pétain, hero of Verdun, be condemned as the traitor of Vichy? In the terrible month of October 1940, few things were more shocking than the sight of Marshal Philippe Pétain—supremely decorated hero of the First World War, now head of the French government—shaking hands with Hitler. Pausing to look at the cameras, Pétain announced that France would henceforth collaborate with Germany. “This is my policy,” he intoned. “My ministers are responsible to me. It is I alone who will be judged by History.” Five years later, in July 1945, after a wave of violent reprisals following the liberation of Paris, Pétain was put on trial for his conduct during the war. He stood accused of treason, charged with heading a conspiracy to destroy France’s democratic government and collaborating with Nazi Germany. The defense claimed he had sacrificed his personal honor to save France and insisted he had shielded the French people from the full scope of Nazi repression. Former resisters called for the death penalty, but many identified with this conservative military hero who had promised peace with dignity. The award-winning author of a landmark biography of Charles de Gaulle, Julian Jackson uses Pétain’s three-week trial as a lens through which to examine one of history’s great moral dilemmas. Was the policy of collaboration “four years to erase from our history,” as the prosecution claimed? Or was it, as conservative politicians insist to this day, a sacrifice that placed pragmatism above moral purity? As head of the Vichy regime, Pétain became the lightning rod for collective guilt and retribution. But he has also been an icon of the nationalist right ever since. In France on Trial, Jackson blends courtroom drama, political intrigue, and brilliant narrative history to highlight the hard choices and moral compromises leaders make in times of war.

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9780674248892

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Reviews

This is a finely tuned history…Those who enjoy tales of the sparring among excellent lawyers arguing an important case will find this book riveting. And for those who want to understand contemporary France and its intricate politics, France on Trial provides…a vibrant analysis of a trial and verdict that remain contentious almost eight decades later. -- Ronald C. Rosbottom * Wall Street Journal * Painstakingly researched…Jackson vividly reconstructs the drama. * The Economist * Masterly…The trial of a nation, its recent history, its dilemmas and its sense of itself. -- Martin Kettle * The Guardian * [Jackson’s] vision sweeps both backwards—to take in the tragicomedy of Pétain’s forced departure from France in the summer of 1944 and subsequent exile in a German castle at Sigmaringen—and forwards to Pétain’s imprisonment, death and posthumous mythologization…[This] scrupulous and vivid reconstruction of the trial reveals much about the Vichy regime and the way that it was remembered in postwar France. -- Richard Vinen * Times Literary Supplement * [A] superb book…Jackson is that rare beast: a distinguished academic historian who writes with air and clarity. It makes him a pleasure to engage with, and when reading about the legal process, one could almost be buried in a work of high-class fiction. He is scrupulously objective in his description of personalities and events. -- Simon Heffer * The Telegraph * Splendid…The central narrative of the trial grips like a thriller and the history of Vichy itself, which inevitably involves much retrospective explanation, is seamlessly woven into it without ever slowing the story’s momentum. Jackson’s vivid prose is leavened by wit and sharpened by telling details…This is a substantial achievement. -- Munro Price * Literary Review * A masterful account of the 1945 treason case that forced a reckoning with four years of Nazi collaboration. -- John Thornhill * Financial Times * [An] absorbing account…[and] an essential key to understanding the country’s recent past. -- Patrick Marnham * The Spectator * An enthralling book…The past is dangerous, you see. Real, hard history of this kind can reach out of the page and stick its thumb in your eye. Who needs fiction when the truth is as gripping as this? -- Peter Hitchens * The Mail on Sunday * Julian Jackson, the foremost historian of the period, here provides a magisterial account of this extraordinary yet also somehow squalid courtroom drama and its context…[A] fine, thought-provoking book. -- Max Hastings * Sunday Times * A riveting and meticulous recreation of the Vichy leader’s 1945 prosecution for collaborating with the German occupiers…Exemplary and fascinating. -- Michael Ignatieff * Project Syndicate * Jackson’s France on Trial is one of those instant classic history books that are immediately recognisable as a masterpiece of scholarship. -- Andrew Roberts * Aspects of History * Jackson’s vivid, stylish, sometimes even cinematic reconstruction suggests that this court case was about far more than one elderly man. It also turned into a proxy debate between French people who were horrified by their country’s partial collaboration with Nazism and those who felt there had been no practical alternative…[A] gripping and timely book. -- Andrew Lynch * Business Post * I have nothing but praise for the way Jackson tells the story, with a clear elucidation of the swirling political passions, and vivid portraits of the heroes and villains, and those in between. -- Piers Paul Read * The Tablet * A captivating account of the 1945 trial of the French marshal who had agreed to an armistice with the Nazi regime in 1940…A highly insightful work of French history. * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) * The great general of the First World War, collaborator with Germany in the Second, how is Marshal Philippe Pétain to be remembered? His trial on charges of treason divided the French in 1945 and has divided them ever since. In the hands of Julian Jackson, a superb historian with the sensibility of a novelist, this is a story not just about Pétain but about war and resistance, the moral compromises of leadership, and the meaning of France itself. -- Margaret MacMillan, author of <i>Paris 1919</i> Julian Jackson brings to life here with his customary mastery the trial in 1945 of France’s highest-ranking military officer, accused of having betrayed his country. Philippe Pétain knew extremes of glory and shame in his long military career. In 1919, as the supreme commander of French armies in World War I, he rode down the Champs-Elysées at the head of a victory parade. After June 1940, with almost unlimited power and prestige, he governed France under German occupation. In 1945, he sat in a French courtroom charged with treason for his exercise of that power. In this compelling book, Jackson gives the reader a seat in the jury box and then follows France’s debate over Pétain—hero or traitor?—over the next fifty years. -- Robert Paxton, author of <i>The Anatomy of Fascism</i> Julian Jackson masterfully performs a high-wire act of historical narration, using the story of the trial of Philippe Pétain to explore in brilliant detail how people in France fought over competing understandings of the Vichy regime—both at the time and ever since. This is a book of great originality, in both form and substance, that will become a landmark in the literature on France and the Second World War. -- Herrick Chapman, author of <i>France’s Long Reconstruction</i> The principal figures in France on Trial parade in front of us as in a film or a play, all charged in their own way with their past and all trying one after another to justify themselves. Pétain is there at the center, silent like a statue. It is history, but also more than history, a kind of classical tragedy where the press take the role of the chorus. A captivating book. -- Antoine Prost, University of Paris A brilliantly researched and vividly narrated attempt to understand and assess a man alternately among the most admired and most abhorred in modern French history…Jackson manages to engage the reader, adopting a rich literary style with which to communicate not only the data and opinions expressed but also the atmosphere in and outside the court and something of the personality of a variety of characters. -- Daniel Snowman * Jewish Chronicle *

The great general of the First World War, collaborator with Germany in the Second, how is Marshal Philippe Petain to be remembered? His trial on charges of treason divided the French in 1945 and has divided them ever since. In the hands of Julian Jackson, a superb historian with the sensibility of a novelist, this is a story not just about Petain but about war and resistance, the moral compromises of leadership, and the meaning of France itself. -- Margaret MacMillan, author of <i>Paris 1919</i> Julian Jackson brings to life here with his customary mastery the trial in 1945 of France's highest-ranking military officer, accused of having betrayed his country. Philippe Petain knew extremes of glory and shame in his long military career. In 1919, as the supreme commander of French armies in World War I, he rode down the Champs-Elysees at the head of a victory parade. After June 1940, with almost unlimited power and prestige, he governed France under German occupation. In 1945, he sat in a French courtroom charged with treason for his exercise of that power. In this compelling book, Jackson gives the reader a seat in the jury box and then follows France's debate over Petain-hero or traitor?-over the next fifty years. -- Robert Paxton, author of <i>The Anatomy of Fascism</i> Julian Jackson masterfully performs a high-wire act of historical narration, using the story of the trial of Philippe Petain to explore in brilliant detail how people in France fought over competing understandings of the Vichy regime-both at the time and ever since. This is a book of great originality, in both form and substance, that will become a landmark in the literature on France and the Second World War. -- Herrick Chapman, author of <i>France's Long Reconstruction</i>

Julian Jackson brings to life here with his customary mastery the trial in 1945 of France's highest-ranking military officer, accused of having betrayed his country. Philippe Petain knew extremes of glory and shame in his long military career. In 1919, as the supreme commander of French armies in World War I, he rode down the Champs-Elysees at the head of a victory parade. After June 1940, with almost unlimited power and prestige, he governed France under German occupation. In 1945, he sat in a French courtroom charged with treason for his exercise of that power. In this compelling book, Jackson gives the reader a seat in the jury box and then follows France's debate over Petain-hero or traitor?-over the next fifty years. -- Robert Paxton, author of <i>The Anatomy of Fascism</i> The great general of the First World War, collaborator with Germany in the Second, how is Marshal Philippe Petain to be remembered? His trial on charges of treason divided the French in 1945 and has divided them ever since. In the hands of Julian Jackson, a superb historian with the sensibility of a novelist, this is a story not just about Petain but about war and resistance, the moral compromises of leadership, and the meaning of France itself. -- Margaret MacMillan, author of <i>Paris 1919</i> Julian Jackson masterfully performs a high-wire act of historical narration, using the story of the trial of Philippe Petain to explore in brilliant detail how people in France fought over competing understandings of the Vichy regime-both at the time and ever since. This is a book of great originality, in both form and substance, that will become a landmark in the literature on France and the Second World War. -- Herrick Chapman, author of <i>France's Long Reconstruction</i>

Julian Jackson brings to life here with his customary mastery the trial in 1945 of France's highest-ranking military officer, accused of having betrayed his country. Philippe Petain knew extremes of glory and shame in his long military career. In 1919, as the supreme commander of French armies in World War I, he rode down the Champs-Elysees at the head of a victory parade. After June 1940, with almost unlimited power and prestige, he governed France under German occupation. In 1945, he sat in a French courtroom charged with treason for his exercise of that power. In this compelling book, Jackson gives the reader a seat in the jury box and then follows France's debate over Petain-hero or traitor?-over the next fifty years. -- Robert Paxton, author of <i>The Anatomy of Fascism</i> Julian Jackson masterfully performs a high-wire act of historical narration, using the story of the trial of Philippe Petain to explore in brilliant detail how people in France fought over competing understandings of the Vichy regime-both at the time and ever since. This is a book of great originality, in both form and substance, that will become a landmark in the literature on France and the Second World War. -- Herrick Chapman, author of <i>France's Long Reconstruction</i>

Author Information

Julian Jackson is Professor of History, Emeritus, at Queen Mary University of London and one of the foremost experts on twentieth-century France. His De Gaulle won the Duff Cooper Prize and Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography, among other awards, and was a New Yorker, Financial Times, Spectator, Times, and Telegraph Book of the Year. His previous books include France: The Dark Years, 1940–1944, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and The Fall of France, which won the Wolfson History Prize. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, Commandeur de l’Ordre des Palmes académiques, and Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

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