Böcker av Nicholas Atkin

The German occupation of France in the north, and General Petain's Vichy Regime in the south, left a permanent scar on the French psyche. This concise and accessible introduction addresses the key themes and issues surrounding this dark period in recent French history.

This text records the Catholic Church struggling to adapt to the new political landscape ushered in by the French Revolution. It shows the Vatican out of step in the wake of world war, Cold War, the expansion of the developing world, with problems of population growth and under-development.

Nicholas Atkin and Frank Tallett offer the first one-volume historical overview of European Catholicism from the 18th century to 2002. The authors record the Church struggling to adapt to the new political landscape ushered in by the French Revolution and show how the formation of nation states and identities was both helped and hindered by the Catholic establishment. They portray the Vatican increasingly out of step in the wake of world war, Cold War, and the massive expansion of the developing world, with its problems of population growth and under-development. This is not the story of the Church in all its glory, but one of adaptation and change, of decline and resilience as the Church has responded to social, political, and cultural changes over the last 250 years.

Adopting a chronological framework, this up-to-date study examines how the regime emerged out of the chaos of the Algerian crisis, how its political evolution has been very different from that envisaged by de Gaulle, and why it has endured.

As a politician between the two World Wars, Petain became a key figure in French military policy. This is a reassessment of Petain, which not only explores his complex personality, but also throws light on the role of the army in French politics and the character of the French right.