This outstanding book, winner of the prestigious Gobert prize of the Academie Française, will unquestionably become the standard history of modern France. The book opens with the impassioned years following the establishment of the Republic, and the introduction of democratic values and civil freedoms. It describes the brilliance of the Belle Epoque, its wholesale destruction during the First World War, the disillusionment of the 1920s and 1930s, followed by the fall of France to Germany in 1940. In his account of the Occupation and the Vichy regime, the author examines dispassionately the vexed question of collaboration, guilt and resistance. The final part of the book tells of the mixed fortunes of the Fourth Republic, the triumphant return of De Gaulle, the accelerating process of decolonization, and the near-revolution in 1968. It describes the role of France in the European Community, the growth of the economy and confidence under Giscard and Mitterand, and recent signs of discord among its varied cultures and peoples.