Overview

In October 1940, few things were more shocking than the sight of Marshal Philippe Pétain--supremely decorated hero of WWI, 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. Five years later, 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. 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? 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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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 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 academiques, and Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

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