A reference to the complex subject

This book by the American historian Robert O. Paxton university -published for the first time in 1972- is an amazing and disturbing work.
* Disturbing because it paints a very accurate and unexpected portrait of the many players in the "French State" and their contradictions. Darlan, Laval, Weyguand, Huntzinger Nogues or Vallat we are presented differently from what we knew of them before. The policies (or lack of policy) diplomatic, military and economic collaboration or crackdown against stateless Jews no longer appear to be more or less suffered under the German yoke but as attempts to placate the Nazis for counterparties , particularly on the issue of prisoners. This policy of collaboration never really will convince the Germans.

* Surprising because it goes back to the origins of the political frustrations of the 30s and explains the complex and contradictory mechanisms of the National Revolution.
The author paints a -from américaine- nationality was uncompromising, but also freed dispassionate interpretations "Franco-French" of that period. Relying primarily on the German archives, French and British, not the minutes of the postwar trial, his intention is accurate and substantiated. In particular it is far more accurate than the "History of Vichy" by Robert Aron (long considered a benchmark in this period), published in 1954 and still influenced by the actors of the time they are Gaullists, Communists or Pétainists (reformed or not).

Read to get an opinion on the subject. Considered a dependent historian working against the Vichy regime, this book deserves to be read and then understand the other works on the same period, who have always relate.