Paris After the Liberation

by Antony Beevor

In this brilliant synthesis of social, political, and cultural history, Antony Beevor and Artemis Cooper present a vivid and compelling portrayal of the City of Lights after its liberation. Paris became the diplomatic battleground in the opening stages of the Cold War. Against this volatile political backdrop, every aspect of life is portrayed: scores were settled in a rough and uneven justice, black marketers grew rich on the misery of the population, and a growing number of intellectual luminaries and artists— including Hemingway, Beckett, Camus, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Cocteau, and Picasso—contributed new ideas and a renewed vitality to this extraordinary moment in time.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, France, World War II, War, European History, Politics

479 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1994

About the author

Sir Antony James Beevor is a British military historian. He has published several popular historical works, mainly on the Second World War, the Spanish Civil War, and most recently the Russian Revolution and Civil War.
Educated at Abberley Hall School, Winchester College, and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Beevor commanded a troop of tanks in the 11th Hussars in Germany before deciding in 1970 to leave the army and become a writer. He was a visiting professor at Birkbeck, University of London, and the University of Kent. His best-selling books, Stalingrad (1998) and Berlin: The Downfall 1945 (2002), have been acclaimed for their detailed coverage of the battles between the Soviet Union and Germany, and their focus on the experiences of ordinary people. Berlin proved very controversial in Russia because of the information it contained from former Soviet archives about the mass rapes carried out by the Red Army in 1945.
Beevor's works have been translated into many languages and have sold millions of copies. He has lectured at numerous military headquarters, staff colleges and establishments in Britain, the US, Europe, and Australia. He has also written for many major newspapers.

Reviews

[Stephen Kiernan · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 resulted, how some people celebrated war's end and others mourned their losses and each resented the other, how those who appeased or sympathized with the Nazis were treated (some had fair trials and some were lynched).

The biggest thing I learned? As the war wound down, Europe remained torn into political factions, and the risk of nations falling into Communism led to political and social instability. The Marshall Plan, America's multibillion dollar bailout for those struggling countries, was motivated less by generosity than by wanting to contain Communism to Russia and its satellites.

This five year history is full of humor, wry insights, vivid characters and healthy skepticism. There is not a dull sentence in it.

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

“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” studies these years in Paris, the city of light. It pays a much admired attention to the details of social life as well as political atmosphere. Beevor includes politicians, artists, philosophers and writers as well as ordinary people in his story. By doing this he draws an accurate picture of events, their trends and transformation that individuals and society experienced alike.
One may say in doing this he sacrifices the depth and remains satisfied with the surface of the events. That is the purpose of this book to provide readers with a big picture of so many intriguing characters, history changing ideas and history making events, going deeper than that creates bias and unbalances the book’s narrative. One who seeks to study further about any individual or any particular part of French contemporary history finds this book a good starting point. For anyone who wants to learn about France, this wonderful country that still continues to intrigue us and sometimes to annoy us, “Paris After Liberation” is a must.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Alister Black · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 (PCF) was the largest and most popular party in the immediate post-war period, thanks to their role in the resistance and popular support for the part played by the Red Army in defeating fascism. But Stalin had little interest in a new French Revolution. Instead he was concerned with consolidating his gains, building a buffer zone in Eastern and Central Europe to protect the Soviet Union from further invasions. So the PCF acted in the interests of Soviet foreign policy, not French socialism.

On the other side was de Gaulle, hero of the Free French army in exile. Militarily he played a minor role but symbolically he was hugely important. His egotism and dictatorial tendencies are explored in this book.

More fascinating still are the stories of the intellectuals and cultural figures of Paris such as Sartre, De Beauvoir, Picasso, Greco, Merleau Ponty and Camus. It would have been nice to hear more about their ideas and much of what is written about them amounts to showbiz gossip.

[Barry Sierer · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 critical but flamboyant social event in the next chapter. The personalities that are examined are not just judged on the quality of their decisions, but on how socially charismatic they are.

While the work clearly skips around to different sections of the subject matter, Beevor and Cooper still provide the reader with in-depth and fascinating subject matter. If your interested in understanding post World War 2 France, this is book is essential reading.

[LisaZen · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 life of ordinary people in Paris in 1944-49, but this is not the case. There is a lot of politics - and this told in a myopic day to day fashion. I got bored and, with so many parties and powers involved, I couldn't form a general view of the power tensions. I needed the politics to be explained rather than followed as an action story.

There were some good bits that helped me keep reading. Learning a little bit about food shortage and other struggles that everybody had to face one way or another was interesting. And I liked the gossipy remarks picked from diplomatic circles and the like. For example, many people got to be called by a mocking nickname and these were very funny. These don't come up so often in history textbook or academic writing. I actually laughed several times while reading the gossipy parts of the book. There should be some of this type of writing in main stream history writing. Revealing some gossip is telling about real life as it happened. When kept in the right context it won't compromise the credibility of the study. These humorous little bits are the reason why I even finished this rather dull book. My rating would be 2.5 stars, but I leave it to two, because it was a struggle to read the whole thing.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Paris apres la liberation 1944-1949" est un louange glorieux a la France, a son peuple et a la culture comme seulement les anglais sont capables d'ecrire. Ce livre vient de la main d'Antony Beevor le grand historien des batailles sur le Front de l'est pendant la deuxieme grande mondiale et de sa femme Artemis Cooper la petite fille de Duff Cooper qui a ete ambassadeur anglais a Paris de 1944 a 1949.

Ce que l'on trouve dans"Paris apres la liberation" sont les souvenirs de la famille Cooper et leurs amis des evenements qui ont eu lieu dans et autour de l'ambassade anglaise. Le liste de personnages est remarquable: Jean Cocteau, Charles de Gaulle, Georges Vanier, Evelyn Waugh, Juliette Greco, Malcolm Muggeridge, Gaston Pawlewski et pas moines de trois futurs laureates du prix Nobel de la Litterature a savoir Francois Mauriac, Winston Churchill et Ernest Hemingway.

Je dois mettre ce livre dans la categorie de plaisir coupable. Il ne possede aucune these. Cependant, les descriptions des grands auteurs et les incidents auxquels ils participent sont extraordinaires. Le lecteur fait vite l'illusion qu'il est assis a une table dans un cafe cabaret sur la rive gauche avec Ernest Hemingway a sa gauche et Jean Cocteau a sa droite tandis que Juliette Greco chante sur la scene.

Ce livre plait enormement. C'est une belle memoire de l'epoque ou la douceur de vie a fait son retour a Paris.

[Janos · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 the political and social history of those fateful years. Also immensely readable. Indeed, it reads like a novel. I enjoyed it very much.

[Ruth · Rating 1 out of 5]

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 life as lived in Paris after the war, and expound on other things from there. For me, there is just too much info and too little cohesion.

[Jeanette (Ms. Feisty)]

DNF. Too confusing and boring.

[Bjarke Knudsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 France – not by any stretch – but I was somewhat aware that the years of the Cold War was also quite confusing and convoluted in many ways. This book proves that I wasn’t completely off. You are taken on an exhaustive – but not exhausting – tour of the frankly Byzantine chain of events, starting with a meeting between Marshal Petain, De Gaulle, and the rest of the French top brass in 1940.

It’s all there. All the stuff you might associate with France after the war. The intellectuals, the counterculture, the Communists. And yet, it never gets boring. Although I did find myself needing to look up certain names and events from time to time.

A central narrative role – for quite valid reasons – is performed by the power-couple Duff and Diana Cooper, later the 1st Viscount Norwich and Lady Diana Cooper, respectively (Lady Diana refused to be adressed as “Viscountess Norwich”, as she thought it sounded too much like “porridge”). Cooper was the UK ambassador to France from 1944-48 – and the paternal grandfather of Artemis Cooper.

In closing – as I don’t want to spoil too much of this great book – I flat-out loved it. No two ways about it. If you like 20th-Century history – and Beevor’s work in general – you’ll love this one.

5/5

[Kurripops · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 the period with regular diversionary treats within the political story.

The narrative is enlivened by quotes from contemporary diaries, particularly of people who were in positions to observe the political and diplomatic manoeuvring.

All in all, the book maintains a lively pace and gives, I hope, an accurate depiction of that most interesting period in French history.

As a bonus, my copy of the Penguin edition was constructed so that the back didn’t break, a fate that occurred with my Spanish Civil War copy!!

[Mark Adkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 interest in, mainly talking about various artists and how the war affected them and how they did post-war. This was not the fault of the writing, I just have little interest in that sort of stuff.

The one major complaint I have in this book is that the author would sometimes put french expressions or quotes down and not put the english translation, some off them I could figure out but the majority I could not. It did not really make that big a deal to the telling of a story but just was I found a major annoyance.

[David Lowther · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 (Dior)and France's eventually recovery, thanks to Marshall Plan money.

Brilliantly researched with essential notes and an exhaustive bibliography, Paris: After the Liberation 1944-1949 is a very fine piece of modern historical writing indeed.

David Lowther. Author of The Blue Pencil, Liberating Belsen and Two Families at War, all published by Sacristy Press.

[Geoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Jelena Nemet · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Kathy Sebesta · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot a lot of things I didn't know, different perspectives I've never thought about, people whose roles I've never considered. I think he did a great job, albeit it's not written to sit down and read from start to finish. I think I've been reading a chapter or two every few weex for six months or more, but it was very worth it.

[Edward · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 Gaulle, absolutely opposed to the Communists who nearly won a plurality of the vote in l946. Within these groups were more factions.

At the end of the war, there were recriminations and executions for "traitors". After that came attempts to set up a stable government which would try, ineffectively, to combat desperate fuel (two unusually cold winters in a row) and food shortages with resulting strikes and chaotic conditions.

At the bottom of most of this turmoil could be found DeGaule who many suspected of wanting to establish a dictatorship to lead France out of its troubles. DeGaulle had little patience for the intricacies of parliamentary government, and he reflected France's divisions. During the war the Americans and British had found him very difficult to work so he was always somewhat isolated. He was furious about post-war efforts to strengthen Germany, wanting instead a permanently divided Germany with France confiscating its industrial heartland in the Ruhr. He distrusted Britain and even more distrusted the Americans. He opposed the Marshall Plan of aid to Europe as an American plot to economically subjugate France. He saw enemies on all sides, including Russia, a contradiction as a weakened Germany would not act as as a counterweight to the Soviet Union, a strategy that the Americans and British pursued as the Cold War began to develop.

All of this, of course, only deals with the political sturggles of the time. The book also discusses the profound changes that would come to France in the late 40's. Contributing to thee changes were the music of the Americans, the GI's who had money to spend in impoverished Paris, the tourists who began to flood Europe, the army of bureaucrats who swept over France. And there were the intellectual disputes of the time between such men as Sartre and Camus.

All together it was a incredibly complicated period, and despite DeGaulle's opposition, what really allowed France to economically rebuild itself, including its war-damaged infrastructure was the help provided by the Marshall Plan. Without it, France would not be what it is today.

[Harald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating history writing.
Bevor and Cooper show a sense of the broad lines of history, but in this book about France from the liberation in 1944 to the turn of the year 1949/50 we also get the details. It involves full portraits of individuals together with a number of good stories and anecdotes. These are again based on contemporary diaries, letters and reports and not least memoirs written by British and American diplomats. An Anglo-American perspective characterizes the presentation in general.

Economic and political crises.
For France, the liberation is followed by an economic crisis which is reinforced by sometimes violent political contradictions. Three wings fought for power: the Gaullists on the right wing, the communists on the left and the alliance of democratic socialists and reform-oriented Catholics in the middle. de Gaulle leads the transitional government, but gives up power already in 1945. The Communists continue to participate in a new coalition government until Stalin's policy in Eastern Europe finally forces them out a few years later. Subsequently, French politics is dominated by moderate western-oriented parties until 1958 when de Gaulle again comes to power.

Art and politics
But Bevor and Cooper embrace so much more! The intellectuals with Jean-Paul Sartre in particular get a lot of space. With today's eyes, French writers and other artists take an astonishingly large place in social development, but also fashion kings such as Christian Dior naturally mingle with diplomats, artists and politicians.

The times are changing.
The living conditions in France after 1945 were characterized by much misery until the positive effect of the American Marshall Plan became evident in 1949. Then the French initiative, the Schuman Plan, first gave us the European Coal and Steel Union in 1950, which was followed by the Treaty of Rome in 1956.

The book is also the story of France's problematic relationship with the great powers of the day: the U.S., Great Britain and the Soviet Union.

[Xfi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Escrito en la línea de “Berlín, La Caída”, en esta obra Beevor nos cuenta los últimos días de Paris bajo el dominio nazis así como los meses posteriores al final de la guerra.
Tiene el mérito de desmitificar los hechos, tanto la importancia de la resistencia francesa como de la euforia posterior a la liberación, que pronto fue engullida por el hambre y el frío provocado por la catastrófica situación de Francia en la inmediata post-guerra.
También los golpes bajos y el clima casi de guerra civil que se creó entre el influyente Partido Comunista y el nuevo poder Americano, con el egocéntrico General De Gaulle en medio. No se puede descartar como teoría que lo que ocurrió en la Francia de finales de los 40 fue un verdadero golpe de estado, dado eso sís con a “mejor de las intenciones”, es decir un triunfo del Partido Comunista en las urnas que pusiera a Francia en la órbita soviética..
El libro, aunque bien documentado se pierde en muchas ocasiones en detalles intrascendentes y sobre todo en el enaltecimiento de la “intelectualidad”, con demasiadas referencias a lo que dijeron o hicieron personajes influyentes de la época.
Buen libro para el que le interese el tema. No por nada Antony Beevor es uno de los más famosos historiadores de la 2º Guerra Mundial, pero para el no iniciado puede ser un libro muy espeso, algo inferior a otros del mismo autor.

[Joaquim Alvarado · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beevor no només és especialista en batalles. En aquesta obra ens brinda les diferències internes de la política, la societat i la intel·lectualitat francesa després de l'alliberament de París. Excel·lent retrat dels tics totalitaris de De Gaulle, de les diferències de criteri entre els aliats i del paper distorsionador del sistema que van jugar els comunistes, així com del dia a dia dels intel·lectuals i artistes parisencs. De retruc, és una crítica a la idiosincràsia francesa, amb la "grandeur" sempre present i amb la seva obsessió (encara present avui en dia) de creure que França és una de les nacions que dirigeixen el món.

[Castles · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

Antony Beevor writing, as usual, is full of anecdotes and vibrant colors, along with some good old french attitude and the small stories that history has forgotten. A must for every francophile.

[Sam Romilly · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.

[Dulcie · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.

[Avis Black · Rating 2 out of 5]

The main problem with this book is that it's just a cursory overview, and fails to be as interesting as it could be. It reads like a series of magazine articles strung together.

[Thomas Boyle · Rating 2 out of 5]

OKish. Not up to his usual standard.

[Margit · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm re-reading this. It's from a few years back when Beevor wasn't quite as commercially aware as he is now. Excellent, and full of the most spectacularly interesting information!

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enormous Challenges as an Occupied Country Adjusts to Peace and Self-Governance

Antony Beevor is one of the most highly-regarded historians of World War II, having written about D-Day, the battle in the Ardennes, and the Fall of Berlin among other books. His co-author and wife, Artemis Cooper, is the granddaughter of Britain’s first postwar ambassador to Paris, Duff Cooper, and the book benefits from her possession of his contemporary diary notes and papers of the period.

France, as a country occupied for four years by the Germans, had been upended and its citizens had been forced to choose how to accommodate the situation. For most, it was reluctant acceptance and minimal cooperation with the Germans. In the early years the Vichy government provided a framework by which one could rationalize such cooperation. Among the most controversial of Vichy government policies was cooperation with the deportation of Jews to Nazi concentration camps and death.

Opposition to the Nazis increased in late 1942 when the British and Americans landed in North Africa. German troops occupied southern France, destroying the facade of Vichy governance. In addition, working age men in France were rounded up and sent to Germany for forced labor. Suddenly French resistance to German occupation grew, including active, formal French resistance which was often Communist-organized.

As the Germans were pushed out of France, there was an administrative vacuum and many scores to be settled. The Paris police turned on each other depending upon individuals’ level of collaboration. Particularly early on, justice was arbitrary and harsh — including assassination. One irony was that many of those accused of collaboration were taken to the sites used in 1942 to collect Jews for deportation, including the camp at Grancy and the Velodrome d’Hiver.

Those rounded up early as collaborationists were much more likely to suffer instant administration of “justice” (including execution) than later when the rule of law was reestablished. Timing as much as evidence could play a decisive role in a prisoner’s fate. Additionally, those senior in responsibility were not tried first. One challenge was reconstituting government across France when so many had been part of the Vichy Regime but knew how to administer food distribution and other essential government services.

de Gaulle was the de facto leader of France but he had many challenges. He was suspicious of the British and Americans replacing Germany and turning France into a country of occupation under their jurisdiction. He had to impose his authority over the Communists. The new constitution of the Fourth Republic gave full power to the French assembly and provided for a very weak prime minister as head of the executive branch. It was adopted despite de Gaulle’s strong opposition. In early 1946 he resigned.

In 1946, the authors note, Paris was inundated by “war tourists.” Americans, due to a very favorable exchange rate, found everything extremely cheap in dollar terms. The German Blitzkrieg was now replaced by a “Ritzkrieg,” in which those with dollars could stay at the best hotels, buy couture gowns from the best fashion houses, and hire servants for a song. A dollar on the black market could be exchanged for 250 francs when a housekeeper cook could be hired for 250 francs a month. Civilian tourism swelled in the following years and the authors provide a vivid description of Paris nightlife in 1948.

Marshal Plan aid, passed to undermine Communist influence, began to revitalize the French economy. Yet one observer is quoted as saying, “The average Frenchman can find in the shops nearly everything he wants except for the means to pay for it.” Still, food shortages ended, unemployment was reduced, and the wave of Communist-directed strikes subsided.

As the decade of the 1940s came to a close, the authors argue that Jean Monet had a major role in use of Marshal Funds to stimulate the recovery of the French economy. Under Monet’s urging, France and Germany embraced economic planning and invested in new factories, while the British tried to revive an old manufacturing infrastructure which held back economic recovery. In 1949, Communist influence suffered from France’s economic resurgence, but so did de Gaulle’s reputation.

Politically, the Fourth Republic proved to be very unstable as de Gaulle had predicted. Over 12 years from 1946 to 1958, there were 16 prime ministers. de Gaulle was to return in 1958 with the collapse of the Fourth Republic and a crisis over Algeria, but that is not the subject of this book.

This is an entertaining and well-written chronicle of a pivotal period in modern French history. It covers a complex period not easy to encapsulate, but Beevor and Cooper do a wonderful job.

[Mats Carlsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sällan har jag blivit så positivt överraskad av en bok som jag blev av "Paris - efter befrielsen 1944-49" skriven av Anthony Beevor och Artemis Cooper. Jag stötte på boken av en händelse och blev lite förvånad över att jag inte hade läst den då jag har läst de flesta av Beevors böcker.

Anthony Beevor är ju en välkänd författare av böcker om andra världskriget och nu senast om ryska revolutionen. Hans medförfattare till boken om Paris, Artemis Cooper; är också en framgångsrik författare, maka med Anthony Beevor och inte minst så var hennes farfar, Duff Cooper, en inflytelserik brittisk ambassadör i Paris 1944-47. Genom denna personliga koppling så blir boken en mycket levande skildring av händelserna under dessa år.

Vid D-dagen den 6 juni 1944 började befrielsen av Frankrike som hade varit ockuperat av Tyskland sedan 1940. Hårda strider i Normandie och prioritering av andra mål än Paris gjorde att det tog till den 25 augusti 1944 innan även huvudstaden var befriad. Dagen efter tågade General de Gaulle in i Paris till invånarnas stora jubel.

Hur Frankrike och Paris går från ockupation och krig, till frihet och demokrati försöker Beevor/Cooper beskriva med denna bok. Författarna menar att det var tre huvudproblem som behövde åtgärdas: ockupationen och utrensningen som en del av "fransk-franska kriget, intelligentians beundran för den revolutionära hänsynslösheten och Frankrikes komplexa relation till Förenta staterna.

När tyskarna lämnade Frankrike var det ett land i spillror som var kvar. Vem skulle leda arbetet med återuppbyggnaden? "Herrarna från London" som hade tillbringat kriget utanför landet i de fria franska styrkorna, motståndsrörelsen eller den kommunistiska motståndsrörelsen. Den kommunistiska motståndsrörelsen hade mycket täta band med Stalin i Ryssland och fjärrstyrdes i vissa frågor därifrån.

1944-1945 var mycket tuffa tider med ont om mat och vintrarna var väldigt kalla. Kolpråmarna frös fast och kunde inte ta sig till huvudstaden. Befolkningen svalt och frös något oerhört denna vinter.

Man var tvungna att lagföra medlöparna till Tyskland och Vichyregimen.

Väldigt snabbt efter andra världskrigets och Tyskland hade kapitulerat så började det Kalla kriget. Såväl Sovjet och USA kämpade i Frankrike om att ha ett dominerande inflytande. USA lyckades med Marshallplanen att behålla Frankrike bland de västliga demokratierna.

"Paris barer, bistroer och caféer hade sedan länge fungerat som intellektuella inkubatorer, men aldrig så mycket som i Saint-Germain efter kriget. En enastående uppsättning talanger hade samlats på två kvadratkilometer i Paris vid en tidpunkt då korsbefruktningen av idéer aldrig hade verkat vara så spännande och viktig, då varenda konstart tycktes vara på väg att vika av åt ett nytt håll. Detta kunde inte ha hänt utan platser där människor kunde träffas och prata, diskutera ochskriva från morgonen till sent på kvällen.

Idéerna var nya, men cafémiljön var lugnande välbekant. Oavsett om golvet var av trä eller kakel, oavsett om de trekantiga askfaten på de små borden gjorde reklam för Byrrh eller Dubonnet, oavsett om affischerna om de senaste teaterpjäserna och utställningarna satt uppsatta på dörren eller var upphängda med klädnypor i de gulnande gardinerna, så luktade det alltid likadant. Den varma, gemytliga lukten av otillräckligt tvättade kroppar, röken av Caporaltobak och billigt vinhade under årens lopp fått fäste. Att komma in på ett välbekant café var som att komma hem." Beevor & Cooper

Beevor/Cooper har lyckats skapa en bok som jag tycker beskriver denna process på ett mycket intressant sätt. Politik, litteratur, kultur, mode, fransmän och turister är alla väldigt viktiga delar av den mycket speciella smältdegel som Paris är. Det kan inte ha varit lätt att skapa en bok om en så mångfacetterad stad under en tidsperiod med så stora motsättningar och förändringar men de har lyckats mycket väl och har skapat en rolig och allmänbildade bok.