Grandeur and Misery

This work presents an overview and synthesis of recent writing on French foreign policy from the years leading up to 1914 through to the debacle of 1940. It examines the social, economic and strategic pressures - as well as the personalities - that helped to shape French policy, and sets France's predicament in the approach to 1939 in a broader and more satisfactory perspective than those studies that look solely to the 1930s for the origins of World War II. This book is designed to be of interest to students of history, international relations and politics.