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1
This devastating account of the ecclesiastical career of Eugenio Pacelli (1876-1958), who became Pope Pius XII in 1939, is all the more powerful because British historian John Cornwell maintains throughout a measured though strongly critical tone. After World War II, murmurs of Pacelli's callous indifference to the plight of Europe's Jews began to be heard.
A noted commentator on Catholic issues, Cornwell began research for this book believing that "if his full story were told, Pius XII's pontificate would be exonerated." Instead, he emerged from the Vatican archives in a state of... more This devastating account of the ecclesiastical career of Eugenio Pacelli (1876-1958), who became Pope Pius XII in 1939, is all the more powerful because British historian John Cornwell maintains throughout a measured though strongly critical tone. After World War II, murmurs of Pacelli's callous indifference to the plight of Europe's Jews began to be heard.
A noted commentator on Catholic issues, Cornwell began research for this book believing that "if his full story were told, Pius XII's pontificate would be exonerated." Instead, he emerged from the Vatican archives in a state of "moral shock," concluding that Pacelli displayed anti-Semitic tendencies early on and that his drive to promote papal absolutism inexorably led him to collaboration with fascist leaders. Cornwell convincingly depicts Cardinal Secretary of State Pacelli pursuing Vatican diplomatic goals that crippled Germany's large Catholic political party, which might otherwise have stymied Hitler's worst excesses. The author's condemnation has special force because he portrays the admittedly eccentric Pacelli not as a monster but as a symptom of a historic wrong turn in the Catholic Church. He meticulously builds his case for the painful conclusion that "Pacelli's failure to respond to the enormity of the Holocaust was more than a personal failure, it was a failure of the papal office itself and the prevailing culture of Catholicism." --Wendy Smith less 
Carmen CallilThe history that I have researched and written is the dark and murky side, the underbelly of history. I was really writing about hatred, about French fascism, and time and time again I would come up against the Catholic church – there was nothing much written about why it did what it did and how it got away with what it did. (Source)
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2
Generalissimo Francisco Franco, the Caudillo of Spain, was the most tenacious and most successful of twentieth-century Europe's great dictators. He is remembered widely as the astute general under whose leadership the Nationalist cause was victorious in the Spanish Civil War and the Communist threat exterminated, and as the head of state who skillfully negotiated safe passage for Spain through World War II, played Hitler off against the Allies, modernized his country, and orchestrated the Spanish economic miracle of the 1960s. By the time of his death in 1975, he had steered a unified Spain... more Generalissimo Francisco Franco, the Caudillo of Spain, was the most tenacious and most successful of twentieth-century Europe's great dictators. He is remembered widely as the astute general under whose leadership the Nationalist cause was victorious in the Spanish Civil War and the Communist threat exterminated, and as the head of state who skillfully negotiated safe passage for Spain through World War II, played Hitler off against the Allies, modernized his country, and orchestrated the Spanish economic miracle of the 1960s. By the time of his death in 1975, he had steered a unified Spain to worldwide respectability and envy and deftly schooled the young prince Juan Carlos to be his successor. To many, Franco was Spain incarnate—a heroic figure to match his illustrious—a heroic figure to match his illustrious predecessors El Cid, Charles V, and Philip II.
This idealized portrait—still widely accepted today—is now subjected to Paul Preston's penetrating scrutiny. He has written a magnificent, monumental biography that vividly recreates the man and sets before us, unclouded by the prejudices or simplifications of apologists or adversaries, a definitive portrayal of this complex, elusive figure.
The controversy about Franco's achievements has raged since his death. Just how good a general was he? Would he have won the civil war without German and Italian help? Can he be blamed for the bombing of Guernica and other atrocities? Did he dupe Hitler during World War II? Were his self-sufficient economic policies directly responsible for ushering in Spain's economic boom? Did he deliberately seek to liberalize the regime in his later years, or was he perhaps losing his grip on the controls? Did Franco preside over another Spanish golden age or did he merely stall and stifle his country's natural growth? How, in the final reckoning, are his achievements to be judged? Preston addresses and resolves, often to startling effect, these pivotal questions, deploying an enormous quantity of new evidence and fresh insights culled from previously inaccessible sources and unexamined witnesses, colleagues, and enemies alike.
Paul Preston's credentials as the biographer of France are incomparable. His many books on modern Spain have been acclaimed for their seriousness and their stylishness, and this gloriously engaging biography is, in many ways, the culmination of his work of an intellectual odyssey of twenty-five years' duration, spent in the company of the Caudillo. Paul Preston sits in judgment on this enigmatic dictator, and his verdict will be compelling to anyone interested in the history of modern Spain or, indeed, in the formation of modern Europe. less Carmen CallilPaul Preston is another great British historian and his subject is Spain. This is the biography of Franco. What is so wonderful about it is that, generally speaking, the history of the last war for many decades in Britain is seen through the prism of what happened to Britain and America. And all the other countries that suffered so terribly in Europe were very much neglected. (Source)
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3
This is the first comprehensive study of the German occupation of France between 1940 and 1944. The author examines the nature and extent of collaboration and resistance, different experiences of Occupation, the persecution of the Jews, intellectual and cultural life under Occupation, and the purge trials that followed. He concludes by tracing the legacy and memory of the Occupation since 1945. Taking in ordinary peoples' experiences, this volume uncovers the conflicting memories of occupation which ensure that even today France continues to debate the legacy of the Vichy years.
more This is the first comprehensive study of the German occupation of France between 1940 and 1944. The author examines the nature and extent of collaboration and resistance, different experiences of Occupation, the persecution of the Jews, intellectual and cultural life under Occupation, and the purge trials that followed. He concludes by tracing the legacy and memory of the Occupation since 1945. Taking in ordinary peoples' experiences, this volume uncovers the conflicting memories of occupation which ensure that even today France continues to debate the legacy of the Vichy years.
less Carmen CallilJulian Jackson is today’s most important and prominent British historian of France. The way that the war is seen by historians changed completely with the publication of a book in the 60s by an American, Robert Paxton [Vichy France, Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944] – it was the bible for people who wanted to understand what happened in France during the Second World War. He showed for the... (Source)
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4
Using the lives of the three outstanding French intellectuals of the twentieth century, renowned historian Tony Judt offers a unique look at how intellectuals can ignore political pressures and demonstrate a heroic commitment to personal integrity and moral responsibility unfettered by the difficult political exigencies of their time.
Through the prism of the lives of Leon Blum, Albert Camus, and Raymond Aron, Judt examines pivotal issues in the history of contemporary French society—antisemitism and the dilemma of Jewish identity, political and moral idealism in public life, the... more Using the lives of the three outstanding French intellectuals of the twentieth century, renowned historian Tony Judt offers a unique look at how intellectuals can ignore political pressures and demonstrate a heroic commitment to personal integrity and moral responsibility unfettered by the difficult political exigencies of their time.
Through the prism of the lives of Leon Blum, Albert Camus, and Raymond Aron, Judt examines pivotal issues in the history of contemporary French society—antisemitism and the dilemma of Jewish identity, political and moral idealism in public life, the Marxist moment in French thought, the traumas of decolonization, the disaffection of the intelligentsia, and the insidious quarrels rending Right and Left. Judt focuses particularly on Blum's leadership of the Popular Front and his stern defiance of the Vichy governments, on Camus's part in the Resistance and Algerian War, and on Aron's cultural commentary and opposition to the facile acceptance by many French intellectuals of communism's utopian promise. Severely maligned by powerful critics and rivals, each of these exemplary figures stood fast in their principles and eventually won some measure of personal and public redemption.
Judt constructs a compelling portrait of modern French intellectual life and politics. He challenges the conventional account of the role of intellectuals precisely because they mattered in France, because they could shape public opinion and influence policy. In Blum, Camus, and Aron, Judt finds three very different men who did not simply play the role, but evinced a courage and a responsibility in public life that far outshone their contemporaries.
"An eloquent and instructive study of intellectual courage in the face of what the author persuasively describes as intellectual irresponsibility."—Richard Bernstein, New York Times less Carmen CallilTony Judt is my hero. He died very recently. I think he is one of the most important and impressive English historians and philosophers of his time. People call him a dissident but I don’t think he was a dissident actually – he was more a defender of moral values in life, society, politics, history, war. He was a great thinker and a great humanitarian and in this book he describes three men of a... (Source)
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5
Set against the backdrop of the French and Industrial Revolutions, two world wars, and the Holocaust, this is the richly detailed and marvelously told saga of a remarkable Jewish family. A compelling narrative, Dreyfus: A Family Affair is a magnificent slice of social and political history. "Serious scholarship that reads like a novel".--Eugene Weber, professor of history, UCLA. 16 pages of black-and-white photographs. more Set against the backdrop of the French and Industrial Revolutions, two world wars, and the Holocaust, this is the richly detailed and marvelously told saga of a remarkable Jewish family. A compelling narrative, Dreyfus: A Family Affair is a magnificent slice of social and political history. "Serious scholarship that reads like a novel".--Eugene Weber, professor of history, UCLA. 16 pages of black-and-white photographs. less Carmen CallilThe Dreyfus affair is a mythic event in French history. This book is the first to tell the story of the entire Dreyfus family – taking them from their origins in Alsace to the Nazi death camps where some of Dreyfus’s descendants were murdered – sent there by the Vichy government. (Source)
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