The Road Back to Paris

by A.J. Liebling

Originally published in 1944, The Road Back to Paris comprises dispatches from France, England, and North Africa that A. J. Liebling filed with The New Yorker during the Second World War. The magazine sent Liebling to Paris in 1939, hoping that he could replicate in wartime France his brilliant reporting of New York life. Liebling succeeded triumphantly, concentrating on writing the individual soldier's story to illuminate the larger picture of the European theater of the war and the fight for what Liebling felt was the first priority of business: the liberation of his beloved France.

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For a complete list of titles, see the inside of the jacket. Despite his ill health and bad eyesight, Liebling went on patrol, interviewed soldiers, fled Paris and returned after D-Day, was shot at in North Africa and bombed in the blitz in London. Into thischaos, as his biographer Raymond Sokolov comments, "he brought himself, a fiercely committed Francophile with a novelist's skill for crystallizing his day-to-day experiences into a profound chronicle of a 'world knocked down.' "

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Journalism, Paris, Essays, War

468 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1997

About the author

Abbott Joseph "A. J." Liebling was an American journalist who was closely associated with The New Yorker from 1935 until his death.

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liebling as a war correspondent in the first half of WWII - the title is slightly misleading, as Liebling never makes it back to Paris, or even mainland Europe after the fall of France, at least in this book – it ends with him following the campaign in North Africa, sometime in 1943. Liebling always had a sense of humor but it’s mostly subdued here; he’s also pretty astute as an observer of the political scene, particularly in France leading up to the military collapse in 1940.

[Andrew Caffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

engrossing. great sentences

[Jim Woolwine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much Prefer Eric Severeid's Not So Wild a Dream.

[Alex Rothe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book. Liebling provides a beautiful approach to a nasty world and explains a disgusting truth about Europe c.1944. I used this book for my thesis and I must recommend this book for all readings on North Africa and by extension true anti-semitism in Colonial France! The collection of news clippings and his intimate access to the upper echelons is enlightening.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing writing from one of America's greatest writers. Among many other things, Liebling describes in particular detail the day to day life of waiting for an invasion, crossing the Atlantic in a tanker convoy when nothing at all happens, and the chaos of battle, deftly emphasizing the traits which make up the men he encounters, from generals and collaborators to rebels and soldiers. Liebling is an old school journalist and a moralist, and in this book, he shows with facts how hatred, weakness, and pettiness are very slowly overcome by the determined pursuit of justice.

[Madeline]

i need to read this book.