Strange Defeat (Paper): A Statement of Evidence Written in 1940

Bloch, Marc

ISBN 10: 0393319113 / ISBN 13: 9780393319118

Published by W. W. Norton & Company, 1999

About this Item

Most items will be dispatched the same or the next working day. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Seller Inventory # rev8871204072

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Strange Defeat (Paper): A Statement of Evidence Written in 1940
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393319113
• ISBN 13: 9780393319118
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

A renowned historian and Resistance fighter―later executed by the Nazis―gives his firsthand perspective on why France fell in 1940.

Marc Bloch wrote Strange Defeat during the three months following the fall of France, after he returned home from military service. In the midst of his anguish, he nevertheless "brought to his study of the crisis all the critical faculty and all the penetrating analysis of a first-rate historian" (Christian Science Monitor).

Bloch takes a close look at the military failures he witnessed, examining why France was unable to respond to attack quickly and effectively. He gives a personal account of the battle of France, followed by a biting analysis of the generation between the wars. His harsh conclusion is that the immediate cause of the disaster was the utter incompetence of the High Command, but his analysis ranges broadly, appraising all the factors, social as well as military, which since 1870 had undermined French national solidarity.

About the Author

Marc Bloch was a French historian who cofounded the Annales School of French social history. He was captured and shot by the Gestapo in 1944 for his work with the French Resistance.