When France Fell
The Vichy Crisis and the Fate of the Anglo-American Alliance
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Narrated by:
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David de Vries
About this listen
According to US Secretary of War Henry Stimson, the "most shocking single event" of World War II was not the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but rather the fall of France in spring 1940. Michael Neiberg offers a dramatic history of the American response - a policy marked by panic and moral ineptitude, which placed the United States in league with fascism and nearly ruined the alliance with Britain.
The successful Nazi invasion of France destabilized American planners' strategic assumptions. At home, the result was huge increases in defense spending, the advent of peacetime military conscription, and domestic spying to weed out potential fifth columnists. Abroad, the United States decided to work with Vichy France despite its pro-Nazi tendencies. The US-Vichy partnership, intended to buy time and temper the flames of war in Europe, severely strained Anglo-American relations. After the war, the choice to back Vichy tainted US-French relations for decades.
Our collective memory of World War II as a period of American strength overlooks the desperation and faulty decision making that drove US policy from 1940 to 1943. Tracing the key diplomatic and strategic moves of these formative years, When France Fell gives us a more nuanced and complete understanding of the war and of the global position the United States would occupy afterward.
©2021 Michael S. Neiberg (P)2021 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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In this landmark work that will forever change your understanding of how and why America went to war in Vietnam, author Fredrik Logevall taps newly accessible diplomatic archives in several nations and traces the path that led two Western nations to tragically lose their way in the jungles of Southeast Asia. He brings to life the bloodiest battles of France’s final years in Indochina - and describes how, from an early point, a succession of American leaders made disastrous policy choices that put America on its own collision course with history.
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Understanding Why We failed the People of Vietnam
- By VA on 03-22-21
By: Fredrik Logevall
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Europe's Last Summer
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- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
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The early summer of 1914 was the most glorious Europeans could remember. But, behind the scenes, the most destructive war the world had yet known was moving inexorably into being, a war that would continue to resonate into the 21st century. The question of how the Great War of 1914 began has long vexed historians. In a gripping narrative, Fromkin shows that hostilities were started deliberately and that two wars were waged, one serving as pretext for the other.
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A different take on the events leading to the Great War
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The Cold War
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In The Cold War, Odd Arne Westad offers a new perspective on a century when a superpower rivalry and an ideological war transformed every corner of our globe. We traditionally think of the Cold War as a post-World War II diplomatic and military conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. But in this major new work, Westad argues that the conflict must be understood as a global ideological confrontation with roots in the industrial revolution and with continuing implications for the world today.
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A lenghy treatise on the Cold War
- By Donald Hill on 11-21-17
By: Odd Arne Westad
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A Failed Empire
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Western interpretations of the Cold War--both realist and neoconservative--have erred by exaggerating either the Kremlin's pragmatism or its aggressiveness, argues Vladislav Zubok. Explaining the interests, aspirations, illusions, fears, and misperceptions of the Kremlin leaders and Soviet elites, Zubok offers a Soviet perspective on the greatest standoff of the 20th century.
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Focus on the Top Leadership
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The Arabs
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In this definitive history of the modern Arab world, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan draws extensively on Arab sources and texts to place the Arab experience in its crucial historical context for the first time. Tracing five centuries of Arab history, Rogan reveals that there was an age when the Arabs set the rules for the rest of the world. Today, however, the Arab world's sense of subjection to external powers carries vast consequences for both the region and Westerners who attempt to control it.
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Superb Book About the Arab World
- By Nostromo on 05-29-16
By: Eugene Rogan
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The Third Reich
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In The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, Thomas Childers shows how the young Hitler became passionately political and anti-Semitic as he lived on the margins of society. Fueled by outrage at the punitive terms imposed on Germany by the Versailles Treaty, he found his voice and drew a loyal following.
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Superb and important history
- By Tad Davis on 10-18-20
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The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution: 1763-1789
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The first book to appear in the illustrious Oxford History of the United States, this critically-acclaimed volume - a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize - offers an unsurpassed history of the Revolutionary War and the birth of the American republic.
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Strong History Rich With Behind The Scenes Details
- By John on 10-06-11
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Stalin
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- By: Oleg V. Khlevniuk, Nora Seligman Favorov - translator
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
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This essential biography, by the author most deeply familiar with the vast archives of the Soviet era, offers an unprecedented, fine-grained portrait of Stalin, the man and dictator. Without mythologizing Stalin as either benevolent or an evil genius, Khlevniuk resolves numerous controversies about specific events in the dictator's life while assembling many hundreds of previously unknown letters, memos, reports, and diaries into a comprehensive, compelling narrative of a life that altered the course of world history.
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Loved it, but wouldn't want to live it
- By Neil on 01-12-20
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The Cold War
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Drawing on new and often startling information from newly opened Soviet, Eastern European, and Chinese archives, this thrilling account explores the strategic dynamics that drove the Cold War, provides illuminating portraits of its major personalities, and offers much fresh insight into its most crucial events. Riveting, revelatory, and wise, it tells a story whose lessons it is vitally necessary to understand as America once more faces an implacable ideological enemy.
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WOW
- By Cordell eddings on 10-13-07
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Hitler
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Hailed as the most compelling biography of the German dictator yet written, Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the heart of its subject's immense darkness. From his illegitimate birth in a small Austrian village to his fiery death in a bunker under the Reich chancellery in Berlin, Adolf Hitler left a murky trail, strewn with contradictory tales and overgrown with self-created myths. One truth prevails: the sheer scale of the evils that he unleashed on the world has made him a demonic figure without equal in the 20th century.
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An Excellent Read
- By Rodney on 09-19-13
By: Ian Kershaw
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What listeners say about When France Fell
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- M. Price
- 10-16-23
Learning a story I hadn’t heard before
While I have been much interested in the European story of World War II, I had never heard much about Vichy France and knew nothing about the American government’s relationship with it and with Charles De Gaulle. Very informative book and very well read.
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- Daniel Jones
- 06-01-23
A Part of WW II Worth Remembering
A great look at a topic I had never considered. Like most of us, I had always thought of Vichy France as an unfortunate side note that was best left forgotten. Neiberg has re-opened a chapter of conveniently forgotten history that needs re-examining.
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- Barry M.
- 03-28-24
Good Deep Dive on a Cloudy Topic
The book fills in a lot of interesting known & unknown unknowns on the the topic of the Vichy govt & it's impact during and since the war, and the narration is good imo.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-16-24
excellent
I think it was thoroughly researched, factual, informative, and entertaining. I look forward to his next book.
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- Kindle Customer
- 05-26-24
Very insightful
Very insightful read and wonderfully written. Enjoyed new perspectives and another perspective on how the poorly the Roosevelt administration handled the foreign relations in Europe throughout the war. Great leader on the domestic front, but a complete disaster on the foreign affairs front. The State Department was a complete joke.
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- Tdavidii
- 05-26-23
Great history that is often overlooked
Great content and preparing many details that is lost over time. I enjoyed this book and the perspective that it shared.
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- Rio V
- 07-22-23
A new perspective on World War II
I had no idea before reading this that the Franco-American relationship after the fall of France in 1940 was so delicate and how desperate America wanted to keep Vichy neutral after the war. I was definitely overwhelmed by this book it truly did leave me surprised with all that was covered.
I highly recommend this book!!!
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- Stephen F. Tate
- 08-28-24
clearly explanation of a very muddled situation
Michael Neiberg is a very gifted historical author, his writing is always informative and enjoyable, a very rare commodity these days, read everything of his you can find!!! 100% five stars
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- Buretto
- 12-11-21
Proceeds from a faulty premise
Namely, that the US and UK were fundamentally unsympathetic to the German Reich, much less to Vichy. One only need to look at an honest account at the acceptance of refugees from that time to dispense with that notion. And there is a kind of credulous Captain America philosophy coloring the author's viewpoint. At best, in his opinion, America was naive in its reliance on the French military to save western democracy, at worst it sold out or sacrificed human rights for political convenience. Perhaps he failed to notice the less than stellar track record of human rights in the land of the free. Uncritical and clichéd, this book is worth a pass.
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4 people found this helpful