Fighters in the shadows - Robert Gildea

The
story of the French Resistance is central to French identity, but it is
a story built on myths. 'La Rsistance franaise' was not simply a
national effort to free the country from German occupation, but a wider
struggle, filled with conflicts and division. It included Spanish
republicans, Italian and even German anti-Nazis. The defence against the
Holocaust brought in Jewish resisters and Christian rescuers. It
involved a civil war for the French Empire in Africa and the Near East.
The movement itself was split between those on the far right and the far
left, fighting for very different visions of the world.

Robert Gildea returns
to the testimonies of the resisters themselves, asking who they were,
what they believed in and what compelled them to take the terrible risks
they did. He brings to the fore the woman resisters, who history
neglected. By looking again at the constructions and interplay of the
myths surrounding the resistance, Gildea builds a vivid, gripping and entirely new account of one of the most compelling narratives of the Second World War.