Philip H. Gordon

For most Americans, the liberation of Europe is the story of victorious Allied armies, heroic U.S. soldiers, and European civilians freed from Nazi tyranny by American grit and sacrifice, but Hitchcock reminds readers that the road to freedom Americans rightly celebrate was -- in the experience of the liberated -- long, destructive, and bloody.

In this remarkably comprehensive study of the controversial issue of nationality in France, Weil takes issue with the common but overly simplified notion that French immigration laws -- based on the principle of jus soli (citizenship based on place of birth) -- reflect the country's open concept of the nation in contrast to other, more closed or even racist societies.