This wide-ranging collection offers an illuminating overview of General Charles de Gaulle's foreign policy during his years as French president. The author presents concise but solid interpretive essays and sheds valuable light on all the major issues confronting de Gaulle and his distinctive way of handling them, including his testy relationship with the United States. This book will be very useful not only for undergraduate classes on French postwar history but also for students and scholars interested in the role of major European powers in the Cold War.

Mark Kramer

Benjamin Rowland has compiled an excellent collection of essays on France's most influential figure in the 20th century. What makes these essays provocative is the insight of their gifted American and European authors; what makes this volume timely is the enduring relevance of de Gaulle's legacy of ideas and policies to the current geopolitical moment.

Simon Serfaty, emeritus, Old Dominion University

A compelling study of how de Gaulle's vision and determination could triumph over adversity and fateful circumstance, and of the lessons that this holds for America's role in the world today.

Ronald Lewis Steel, University of Southern California

Expert contributors consider what lessons the policies of former French President Charles de Gaulle hold for both the current French leadership and governments around the world, contending that the general had an ‘uncanny sense of where history was going’.

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