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The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940-1944
by Ronald C. Rosbottom
On June 14, 1940, German tanks entered a silent and nearly deserted Paris. Eight days later, France accepted a humiliating defeat and foreign occupation. Subsequently, an eerie sense of normalcy settled over the City of Light. Many Parisians keenly adapted themselves to the situation - even allied themselves with their Nazi overlords. At the same time, amidst this darkening gloom of German ruthlessness, shortages, and curfews, a resistance arose. Parisians of all stripes - Jews, immigrants, adolescents, communists, rightists, cultural icons such as Colette, de Beauvoir, Camus and Sartre, as well as police officers, teachers, students, and store owners - rallied around a little known French military officer, Charles de Gaulle.
When Paris Went Darkevokes with stunning precision the detail of daily life in a city under occupation, and the brave people who fought against the darkness. Relying on a range of resources - memoirs, diaries, letters, archives, interviews, personal histories, flyers and posters, fiction, photographs, film and historical studies - Rosbottom has forged a groundbreaking book that will forever influence how we understand those dark years in the City of Light.
"Starred Review. A profound historical portrait of Paris for anyone who loves the city." - Kirkus
"A riveting account of one of the most resonant hostage-takings in history: the 1500 days when a swastika flew from the Eiffel Tower. Ronald Rosbottom illuminates every corner of a darkened, heartsick city, exploring the oddities, capturing the grisly humor, and weighing the prices of resistance, accommodation, collaboration. The result is an intimate, sweeping narrative, astute in its insight and chilling in its rich detail." - Stacy Schiff, author of Cleopatra, A Great Improvisation, and Véra
"When Paris Went Dark recounts, through countless compelling stories, how Nazi occupation drained the light from Paris and how many of its residents resisted in ways large and small. This is a rich work of history, a brilliant recounting of how hope can still flourish in the rituals of daily life." - Scott Turow, author of Identical
This information about When Paris Went Dark was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ronald C. Rosbottom is a Professor at at Amherst College. He has edited three essay collections and has written two monographs on French novelists.
At Amherst, Ron is the holder of the Winifred Arms Professorship in the Arts and Humanities and professor of French and European studies. He has also been an academic administrator and planner and former dean of the faculty. His classes have included the 18th-century British and French novel, the history of ideas, literary criticism, art history of the early modern and modern periods, the history of the European city, especially of Paris, fictional and documentary film, Napoleon and his legends, the literature of World War I, and, most recently World War II and the European imagination. Ron has published well over a hundred articles and book reviews, has edited three essay collections and has written two monographs on French novelists.
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