de Gaulle

Life&Times
By Professor Julian Jackson

General Charles de Gaulle, the saviour of France’s honour in 1940 and founder of the Fifth Republic in 1958, was a man of contradictions; a conservative who brought the communists into his government and an imperialist who completed France’s decolonisation.

‘distinguished book’  

Andrew Roberts, Sunday Telegraph

‘Jackson tells this epic story with skill and understanding. His smartly produced book presents an admirably rounded portrait of its enigmatic subject, using telling quotations to probe a man who contained as many contradictions as the country with which he so thoroughly identified.’
Jonathan Fenby, BBC History Magazine

Professor Julian Jackson FBA, FRHistS is a leading historian of 20th-century France. He was educated at Cambridge University where he obtained his doctorate in 1982. After working for many years at the University of Wales, Swansea, he joined Queen Mary History Department in 2003. He has been on the editorial board of French Historical Studies and is at present on the editorial board of French History. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2003. In 2001 he published A large history of France under the Occupation, France: the Dark Years 1940-1944 (Oxford University Press: 2001) which aimed to offer the largest and most wide-ranging synthesis on the subject in any language. Jackson’s most recent books include, The Fall of France (2003), which was one of the winners of the Wolfson History Prize for 2004. France: the Dark Years 1940-1944 and De Gaulle (2003) were translated into French.