De gaulle biography book

I suppose the first question to ask is your motivation for writing a biography of Charles de Gaulle. You mention in the beginning of your book that there’s a massive industry around de Gaulle publishing.

In fact, I think there’s an institute devoted to it.

De gaulle biography book

What was the gap in the industry’s production that you hoped to fill with your biography?

There’s a huge production on de Gaulle, more than anybody else in modern French history, particularly in France today. I was just in France a few weeks ago and spotted in a bookshop seven new books on de Gaulle.

One was on de Gaulle’s humour, one was on the women in de Gaulle’s life — neither terribly big books!

Charles de gaulle biography book

Another was on de Gaulle and Russia, there was one on de Gaulle and the Republic, one imagining what Franco and de Gaulle said to each other when they met in June 1970. And so it goes on. In France he occupies a space in the national memory even greater than Churchill in this country; it’s anot