Caught between the memory of a brutal war won at frightful cost and fear of another cataclysm, France in the 1930s suffered a failure of nerve. Brilliantly chronicled here by a master historian, this fateful era could neither solve insoluble problems nor escape from them.
"[Told with] learning and verve. . . . A scintillating introduction to this troubled French decade."-Charles S. Maier, New York Times Book Review