The Blood of Free Men

Written with crystal clarity and a flair for the telling anecdote, this book unfolds the multi-dimensional chess game that culminated in the liberation of Paris after four long years of Nazi occupation. Neiberg shows how diverse actors—leftist resistance fighters bent on liberating the city from within, Allied officials fearing just such a “red” takeover, a willful Charles de Gaulle determined to dominate the victory, anxious collaborationists, and German officers—fueled a volatile crisis that changed from moment to moment in the city’s streets.

Michael Neiberg is a Professor of History at the US Army War College. Neiberg is the author of numerous books and is one of America’s leading historians of the First World War. However, Professor Neiberg also researches and writes on various aspects of the Second World War and his skill as a scholar of French history is clearly evident in this book. This is a fast-paced, meticulously researched, and gripping account of the liberation of Paris in August 1944. How the City of Light finally regained its freedom is a complex but compelling story. That story is brilliantly presented in… show more.