Volume 6, Number 8 · May 12, 1966
Fabulous Monster
By A.J.P. Taylor
An Explanation of De Gaulle
by Robert Aron
Harper & Row, 210 pp., $4.95
De Gaulle
by François Mauriac, translated by Richard Howard
Doubleday, 229 pp., $4.50
The French
by Jean-François Revel, translated by Paula Spurlin
Braziller, 128 pp., $4.00
De Gaulle Implacable Ally
edited by Roy C. Macridis, Foreward by Maurice Duverger
Harper & Row, 248 pp., $6.00
The French like to name their streets after significant historical days: 10 August, 11 November, 4 September, and so on. There ought to be many streets of 18 June, and perhaps there are. For on 18 June 1940 De Gaulle came into existence as a political phenomenon. Before that day, Brigadier General de Gaulle was a professional soldier with reasonably enlightened ideas about armored warfare—ideas which in fact proved to have little relevance to World War II. On 18 June De Gaulle decided to become France. Few people took notice of him, the French least of all. The asylums are full of people who imagine that they are the Emperor of China. De Gaulle persisted in his identification undeterred and, against all expectation, it appeared to come true. From 1944 to 1946 and again since 1958 De Gaulle and France have been interchangeable terms.
Review, 2046 words
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