Paris After the Liberation, 1944-1949

Rating:
Summary: The "City of Light" comes back to life
Review: I have enjoyed many books by Mr. Beevor, and this one is as well-written and infornative as his others. Everyone knows, at least in some way, the story of WWII and the Occupation of Paris, but most of us do not know what happened in that city, and in France, after it was liberated. This book fills in our gap in that knowledge quite well, and it shows that France was really on the front lines of the Cold War during the latter part of the 1940's. We read of the humanitarian and generous contributions of the US to the initial recovery of France, and how its leadership strove mightly to regain a stable government while. at the same time, trying their best of overcome the stigma of Vichy. What amazes me is that there is such a lack of gratitude among the French to the US for all that we have done for them in the 20th century. This book shows that, once again, "No good deed goes unpunished".

Rating:
Summary: Almost as good as Stalingrad or Berlin
Review: Paris after the Liberation has captured the imagination like no other Nazi-liberated city (sure, there's "Roma, Citta Aperta", but can any non-Italian mention any intellectual or politician living in Rome in 1944?). Maybe it's because the French are better at self-promotion. Maybe it's because their history is more dramatic than others (4 major revolutions- 1789, 1830, 1848 and 1871-in less than a century), or because Paris is a better setting for a good story (remember Les Miserables, or a Tale of Two Cities), but the happenings in Paris in 1944-1949 are compulsively readable.

The scene is dramatic: it moves from avant-guard theatres to banquet halls, from smelly bistros to worker tenements, from Les Champs Elysees to Saint-Germain-Des-Pres. The cast is outstanding: doddering Petain, haughty De Gaulle, decent Mauriac, ambitious Malraux, brilliang Sartre, Camus, Hemingway, Picasso, Celine, Brassillach, Drieu, plus a large cast of fanatical communists and anti-semites, ignorant American senators, well-connected British spies and hairy proto-Kerouacs. Everything comes together: military and political matters, social and artistic trends, intellectual developments. Paris, in 1944-1949, was shabby and run-down, its people hungry and ill-scrubbed (although that's perhaps a recurring theme), but it was the mecca of the world. Anyone who was anyone was there.

Beevor and Cooper tell the story well. They are able to add much flavour to the well-known facts by judicious use of diaries and private papers. One feels like one was there. I wouldn't have minded it myself.