Paris After the Liberation_ 1944 - 1949 - Antony Beevor [0]
PARIS AFTER THE LIBERATION
‘There is hardly any aspect of French life during that period which
the authors do not explore, always with compelling liveliness and
omnivorous zeal. I shall return gratefully to it again and again’
Alistair Horne, European
‘This book, like the city it discusses, oscillates satisfyingly between
blunt history and roistering gossip’ Frank Delaney, Sunday Express
‘After Antony Beevor’s Crete and Artemis Cooper’s Cairo, the
excellence of their joint Paris After the Liberation should have come as
no surprise. De Gaulle’s race for Paris makes one hold one’s breath;
then the skein brilliantly unravels. Every shade of collaboration is
traced and – brand-new – the details of Russian control of the French
Communist Party’ Patrick Leigh Fermor, Spectator
‘An entrancing read’ Richard Lamb, Spectator
‘A beautifully written book about a vast tapestry of military, political
and social upheaval, remarkably well researched, wise, balanced, very
funny at times… I was a witness to events in Paris in the first
desperate, glorious, mad weeks, and this is just how it was’
Dirk Bogarde
‘A perceptive portrait of Paris in its heyday’ J. G. Ballard, The Times
‘This valuable newbook… a true vade mecum of an era’
Paul Ryan, Irish Times
‘This is a wondrous account that thoroughly matches the brilliance of
its subject’ Boston Globe
‘A splendid chronicle of the political, social and cultural forces that
were unleashed by the war and that played themselves out in Paris in
an acrimonious battle for the future of France’ Philadelphia Enquirer
‘Fascinating’ Alan Massie, Daily Telegraph
‘In the 1940s, France went to war with herself yet again, and the tale,
told with relish by Antony Beevor and Artemis Cooper in this
fascinating book, is calculated to stir mixed feelings in the devoutest
Francophile’ David Coward, New York Times
‘A rich, grim but often funny and always marvellously intelligent
venture into the French past as well as our own’
S. J. Hamrick, Chicago Tribune
‘A thoroughly professional job in reconstructing the sensations of
Paris in the years after the liberation of 1944, skilfully balancing
historical narrative with social analysis, and tempering the appalling
with the absurd’ Jan Morris, Independent
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Antony Beevor wrote his first novel when he lived in Paris for two years. His works of non-fiction include The Spanish Civil War, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance, which received the 1993 Runciman Award, Stalingrad, a No. 1 bestseller which won the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson History Prize and the Hawthornden Prize in 1999, and its companion volume, Berlin: The Downfall, 1945. Stalingrad and Berlin between them have sold well over 2 million copies, with both books translated into twenty-four foreign languages. Crete, Stalingrad and Berlin are also all published by Penguin.
Artemis Cooper’s work includes Cairo in the War 1939–1945 and Writing at the Kitchen Table, the authorized biography of Elizabeth David, both of which are published by Penguin. She has also edited two collections of letters: A Durable Fire: The Letters of Duff and Diana Cooper and Mr Wu and Mrs Stitch: The Letters of Evelyn Waugh and Diana Cooper. Her grandfather, Duff Cooper, was the first post-war British ambassador to Paris, and his private diaries and papers provide one of the unpublished sources for this book.
Antony Beevor and Artemis Cooper were both appointed Chevaliers de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. They are married and have two children.
AFTER THE LIBERATION
1944–1949
Antony Beevor and Artemis Cooper
REVISED EDITION
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