Taking Paris

July 19, 2021
Dugard, coauthor of the Killing series with Bill O’Reilly, delivers a stirring history of the fight to retake Paris after it fell to German forces in June 1940. Breathlessly recounting artillery duels, espionage campaigns, tank and naval battles, and bombing raids, Dugard profiles a mix of prominent and lesser-known figures, including U.S. ambassador to France William Christian Bullitt Jr.; underground operatives Virginia Hall, Jean Moulin, and Germaine Tillion; and Catholic priest and Nazi collaborator Fr. Robert Alesch, who infiltrated the French Resistance. While some theaters of combat on the road to Paris are only briefly sketched or ignored, Dugard spares no grisly detail when it comes to the persecution of the city’s Jews and the Gestapo’s torture of captured Resistance fighters. The treatment of Charles de Gaulle is more nuanced than is usual for Anglophone accounts, and Dugard provides an enlightening deep dive into the 1942 Battle of Bir Hakeim in Libya, where de Gaulle’s Free French troops first fought the Nazis “on their own.” Throughout, cinematic details evoke the despair of the city’s capture and the euphoria of its liberation, when peals of church bells and crowds singing the French national anthem celebrated the arrival of French and American armored divisions. WWII buffs will be enthralled.

August 1, 2021
Another history of the liberation of Paris. Paris was taken by the Wehrmacht in 1940 and then taken back in 1944. Military historians have covered this ground in countless books, and this one is a middling entry in the genre. Best known as the co-author of the bestselling Killing series with Bill O'Reilly, journalist Dugard--who has also authored books on Christopher Columbus, Capt. James Cook, and others--delivers another breathless historical narrative that will find a receptive audience among fans of Dugard and the O'Reilly series. Despite the book's title, there was no epic battle for Paris. In 1940, the French declared it an open city, so the Wehrmacht moved in without a fight and withdrew, four years later, without defending it. Dugard opens with the German invasion on May 10, 1940, which ended in the French surrender. Then he delivers a vivid yet scattershot history of the war in Europe (the Russian front receives a rare mention), with a heavy emphasis on France and ending with 20 pages recounting the liberation of Paris on Aug. 25, 1944. Appropriately, the author gives Charles de Gaulle a major role and devotes several chapters to the little-known Battle of Bir Hakeim, the valiant defense of a North African desert outpost by Free French troops in 1942. Writing for a broad audience, Dugard inevitably devotes far too much space to the French Resistance, the heroics of suffering of which were not matched by their contributions to victory. As a more "in-depth" work, Dugard recommends the modestly deep 1965 bestseller Is Paris Burning? by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre. Far better are Lloyd Clark's Blitzkrieg (2016), which focuses on the 1940 French defeat, and Jean Edward Smith's The Liberation of Paris (2019), an instructive look at the political calculations of the Allies. Popular World War II history, perhaps more popular than necessary.

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July 23, 2021

This book maintains that the World War II occupation and eventual liberation of Paris are important to an understanding of modern European history, having killed, wounded, or displaced millions of people and made or unmade many military and political careers. Dugard ("The Killing" series coauthored with Bill O'Reilly; The Last Voyage of Columbus) delivers a stirring account of the period between the German capture of Paris in May 1940 and the day Allied forces marched into the City of Light in August 1944. Based entirely on secondary sources and written in the present tense, in short chapters with a reportorial style, Dugard's book retells the familiar history with notable skill; he recounts critical battles in France and North Africa and studies the significant individuals involved, including Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Charles de Gaulle, and Dwight Eisenhower. Readers won't find new insights in these pages, but the story of World War II Paris remains no less compelling in Dugard's fast-paced overview. VERDICT Recommended for self-described history nerds and other general readers interested in World War II or French history.--Linda Frederiksen, formerly at Washington State Univ. Lib., Vancouver

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