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The Plateau

By: Maggie Paxson
Narrated by: Maggie Paxson
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Publisher's summary

During World War II, French villagers offered safe harbor to countless strangers - mostly children - as they fled for their lives. The same place offers refuge to migrants today. Why?

In a remote pocket of Nazi-held France, ordinary people risked their lives to rescue many hundreds of strangers, mostly Jewish children. Was this a fluke of history, or something more? Anthropologist Maggie Paxson, certainties shaken by years of studying strife, arrives on the Plateau to explore this phenomenon: What are the traits that make a group choose selflessness?

In this beautiful, wind-blown place, Paxson discovers a tradition of offering refuge that dates back centuries. But it is the story of a distant relative that provides the beacon for which she has been searching. Restless and idealistic, Daniel Trocmé had found a life of meaning and purpose - or it found him - sheltering a group of children on the Plateau, until the Holocaust came for him, too. Paxson's journey into past and present turns up new answers, new questions, and a renewed faith in the possibilities for us all, in an age when global conflict has set millions adrift. Riveting, multilayered, and intensely personal, The Plateau is a deeply inspiring journey into the central conundrum of our time.

Cover photograph: (Detail of Jewish youth) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Jack Lewin
Illustration based on portrait of Daniel Trocmé from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Robert Trocme

©2019 Maggie Paxson (P)2019 Penguin Audio
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History
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Critic reviews

“Inspiring, riveting, and brilliantly researched and written, this is a book for our time by an author who has found her calling and risen with literary grace to a powerful challenge.” (Booklist, starred)

“Lyrical, complex, [and] genre-melding...History, memoir, profound soul-searching about peace, and meditations on the moral limitations of observation (rather than action) are woven together with dreamlike sequences imagining the lives of victims whose fates aren’t on historical record. The beautifully written, often heartrending narrative is as unforgettable as the region and individuals it brings to life.” (Publisher's Weekly, starred)

“Multilayered, intimate...Paxson is meticulous in her attention to...the way people live, their language, the choices people make in times of violence.... An elegant, intensive study that grapples with an enormous idea: how to be good.” (Kirkus Reviews, starred)

What listeners say about The Plateau

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Remarkable. Masterpiece.

The Plateau is unlike any book I've ever read before. Equal parts riveting courageous story and intimate memoir and historical narrative, while spoken through the voice of a humble yearning poet.
Hearing it in author's own voice was an extraordinary addition to the already compelling heart-breaking epic.

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Thank you

A thoughtful, timely, impassioned quest for a way to live with love and without fear.

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