The meticulous reconstruction of the life of one of the great historians of our century and of his important and-during World War II-heroic role in history. An excellent commentary on the intellectual and political life of France during his time.
The two world wars are the mountain ranges that dominate the historical landscape of the twentieth century. We still live in their shadows, in America as well as in Europe. Only with these wars did European and American history begin to coincide. The revolutions of 1820, 1830, 1848 and the wars leading to the unification of Italy and Germany marked the nineteenth century in European history, while the major events in American history were the westward movement, the Civil War and mass immigration. These events had certain transatlantic connections, yet not decisive ones. But in the twentieth century the two world wars have been the main events in the history of Europe and America as well.
It becomes clearer and clearer that January 14, 1963, is fated to go down in history as the "black Monday" of both European policy and Atlantic policy. What occurred that day was something much more significant than the mere dooming of negotiations between Great Britain and the European Community. It was, in plain fact, an attack on the Atlantic Alliance and the European Community-an attack, that is, on the two most significant achievements of the free world since the end of the Second World War.
On the surface at least, the Gaullist régime in France now looks substantially stronger than before the May crisis. The June elections gave General de Gaulle and his then Prime Minister, Georges Pompidou, a massive parliamentary majority that for the next five years seemingly insures M. Pompidou's successor, former Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville, against every normal political hazard-except, perhaps, the eventual loss of his master's confidence.
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