De Gaulle

By: Julian Jackson

Narrated by: James Adams

"The finest one-volume life of de Gaulle in English." (Richard Norton Smith, The Wall Street Journal)

In a definitive biography of the mythic general who refused to accept Nazi domination of France, Julian Jackson captures this titanic figure as never before. Drawing on unpublished letters, memoirs, and resources of the recently opened de Gaulle archive, he reveals how this volatile visionary put a broken France back at the center of world affairs.

©2018 Julian Jackson (P)2018 Audible, Inc.

A Masterly Study

This is a long book at 928 pages or 41 hours and 35 minutes in audiobook format. Julian Jackson covers De Gaulle from childhood to death. The book is well written and meticulously researched. I have read a lot of books about World War I, but I do not recall any author mentioning the role De Gaulle played in the Great War. Jackson covers in detail De Gaulle’s role as a lieutenant in the WWI.

Jackson appears to have done a good job in writing an unbiased biography of De Gaulle. The author covers in-depth De Gaulle’s role in World War II. I must admit that when I started reading this book most of my knowledge about De Gaulle was based on my readings by Churchill and Eisenhower. It was good to obtain an unbiased viewpoint of De Gaulle. I learned about his role in WWII and as president of France. I still do not have a high opinion of him. One of his comments I cannot seem to get out of my mind is as follows: “It is not the role of government to obtain proposals or seek consensus but to give orders”. That statement seems to really bother me. I also noted he tried to do away with political parties but was unsuccessful.

I enjoyed the book and learning about De Gaulle and also about the civil war with Algeria that De Gaulle triggered. If you are interested in De Gaulle or French history, you should give the book a try.

Julian Jackson is a British historian. James Adams does a good job narrating the book. I enjoyed his British accent. Adams is a British audiobook narrator who now lives in the United States.

The characteristics of a great and charismatic leader

DeGaulle’s struggle to make France a power even under the heel of Germany after the invasion of France in World War II is a story studded with anecdotes, passionate arguments, tactics of war and elements of great character, without which France would not have achieved what it did after World War II. The reader was exceptional.

Big man, big book

Very lRge book, yet rarely felt that way. Well written book about a fascinating man.

Commenting only on the reading

It’s so distracting to have a narrator who is so clueless as to much French pronunciation. The producer seems to have assumed that because Mr. Adams has down the difficult French “r,” he was up to the task. He mangles most vowels. He has a wonderful voice and would be fabulous narrating, say, Dickens or Trollope.

DeGaulle was maddening, Jackson’s book is enlightening

Once Paris was liberated, and especially after V-E Day, it turned out that everyone in France was in the Resistance. The truth was much different and far darker, reality that France has never acknowledged in any meaningful way.

Charles DeGaulle, on the other hand, played an honorable role even if he drove Churchill and Roosevelt to distraction. Apart from a number of chapters on obscure French philosophers and novelists, this excellent biography is well worth listening to.

Despite France being an unimportant (yet incredibly insecure) country after World War II, DeGaulle made it a player on the world stage for good and ill. Great material worth listening to and first-rate narration.