Prize-winning and bestselling historian Jean Edward Smith tells the dramatic story of the liberation of Paris during World War II—a triumph that was achieved through the remarkable efforts of Americans, French, and Germans, all racing to save the city from destruction.
In his new book, The Liberation of Paris, Smith presents a more modulated relationship of mutual if often grudging esteem and uneasy collaboration toward common objectives [between Charles de Gaulle and Dwight D. Eisenhower]. Those two familiar characters, both future chiefs of state, naturally loom large in Smith’s brisk new recounting of those late-summer days ... Smith reveals how much discretionary power de Gaulle and Eisenhower (and their lieutenants) exercised in the field, making momentous decisions that their political masters had little choice but to accept ... The Liberation of Paris is a slender book: terse, authoritative, unsentimental.
Biographer and historian Jean Edward Smith...tells the fascinating story of Paris’ liberation and credits three soldiers—French General de Gaulle, American General Dwight Eisenhower, and German General Dietrich von Choltitz—with saving the ‘city of light' ... Smith details the movement of French troops into Paris, their interaction with Resistance forces, and the small-scale fighting that resulted in relatively small numbers of casualties.
... authoritative and beautifully written ... This expertly crafted narrative is a gem, a model of how important and complex events can be conveyed for enlightenment to a general audience.
