Politics, Society and Christianity in Vichy France [Hardcover]

This is the first work in English or French to deal comprehensively with the attitudes and activities of Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, in France during the Vichy regime and under the German yoke. The author shows how Christians reacted to Marshal P?tain and the Laval government, as well as to the Allies, the Germans, the Resistance and the Vatican. The trauma of the treatment of the Jews, which eventually acted upon the Church as a catalyst, is assessed in detail since it represented a turning-point in Christian attitudes. This rigorous examination of one of history's darkest periods provides a wealth of new material on matters hotly debated at the Liberation including: - the Vichy regime's slide into near-fascism; - the persecution of the Jews; - the attempted regimentation of youth and trade unions; - resistance to, or collaboration with, the enemy; and- the paramountcy of conscience for Christians.W. D. Halls, Onetime Supernumary Fellow, St Antony's College, Oxford

This magnificent book, the first in either French or English to provide an overall assessment of the attitudes and activities of Christians during the occupation, presents a more measured picture...it will be difficult to better the thorough and dispassionate scholarship presented here. THES, August 9th, 1996

Indispensable for every student of the period ... an outstanding work of history. Theodore Zeldin

A first-rate and much-needed updating of the religious history of the Vichy years in France. Robert O. Paxton

This book fills a huge hole in existing historical studies of the Vichy period ... All university courses on France during this period will wish to recommend it, and the clarity of style makes it such that it will recommend itself to informed readers outside academic institutions. H. R. Kedward

... a remarkable book. Halls demonstrates the great complexities and diversities of the Church's actions and policies inlc$