De Gaulle: The Self-Made Man

Abstract

Massive, imposing, authoritative, ponderous: Julian Jackson’s excellent biography of Charles de Gaulle bears a strong resemblance to the man himself. And, like the 6’4” general, this superb book will overshadow all others on the topic. Jackson, Professor of History at Queen Mary University of London, is the leading historian of twentieth century France. His early work analyzed the economic upheaval, political turmoil, and social experimentation of the 1930s in France. He has also written a masterful account of France under German occupation during the Second World War, and the finest short study we have of the fall of France in 1940. No one could be better prepared for the challenge of de Gaulle.1 And a challenging subject he is. A humorless, vain, and difficult man, de Gaulle was disliked or feared by virtually all who worked alongside him over the years—and yet he drew millions to him and created a durable political legacy that continues to exert force in French life today. His passion and love for his country were often obscured by his austere, caustic personality. Harold Macmillan, who encountered him during the war and later as British prime minister in the late 1950s, wrote that he had never known a man “at once so ungracious and so sentimental… . He belongs to the race of unhappy and tortured souls to whom life will never be a pleasure to be enjoyed but an arid desert through which the pilgrim must struggle” (221).