Paris ’44

Author Patrick Bishop
Narrator Peter Noble
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Publish Date 25 July 2024
Run Time 14 hours and 35 minutes
Format Audio
Genre European history, History, Invasion, conquest and occupation, Second World War.

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

From the Sunday Times-bestselling author, comes a heart-stopping countdown narrative recreating the liberation of Paris in 1944, one of the great and most dramatic hinge moments of WW2

When the Germans marched in and the lamps went out in the City of Light the millions who loved Paris mourned. Liberation, four years later, triggered an explosion of joy and relief. It was the party of the century and everybody who was anybody was there. General Charles de Gaulle seized the moment to create an instant legend that would take its place alongside the great moments in French history. After years of oppression and humiliation Parisians had risen to reclaim their city and drive out the forces of darkness – or so the story went.

This fresh new account of the liberation, packed with revelation, tells the story of those heady days of suspense, danger, exhilaration – and vengeance – through the eyes of a range of participants, reflecting all sides of the conflict: Americans, French and Germans; resisters and collaborators. Among them are famous names like Ernest Hemingway, J.D. Salinger and Pablo Picasso, but also some fascinating unknowns including a medic turned Resistance gunwoman, an androgynous Hungarian sculptor and a French bluestocking who quietly set about saving the nation’s art treasures from the Nazi looters.

Paris ’44 looks behind the mythology to tell the real story of the liberation and expose the conflicts and contradictions of France under the occupation – the shame as well as the glory. This gripping war-time narrative will enthral anyone who has a place for Paris in their hearts.

©2024 Patrick Bishop (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

Paris u201944 tells the story of the occupation and the liberation, but it does not read like military history . . . The book resembles some epic thriller, with vividly evoked characters all somewhere on the spectrum between collaboration and resistance, shame and glory . . . Paris u201944 is a wonderful book: droll, moving, with a cinematic eye and not a boring line in it

Observer

An evocative account of the cityu2019s liberation . . . Bishop is such a skilful writer, with a sense of nuance and an eye for memorable anecdotes, that even readers familiar with the story will enjoy his book enormously . . . history, like life, is complicated, and Bishopu2019s admirable book treats it with the respect and care it deserves

Sunday Times

Patrick Bishop follows a tradition of British and American historians interrogating aspects of wartime history that the French themselves prefer to avoid. His beady-eyed Paris '44 takes a panoramic view of crumbling Nazi administration, approaching armies, foreign correspondents, Resistance fighters, opportunist Gaullists and various collaborators, sharply depicting the faultlines of rivalry among the liberators

TLS Books of the Year

How close Paris came to being laid waste u2013 and many of its citizens being massacred in an almighty bloodbath u2013 is vividly and thrillingly recounted by British war historian and Paris resident Patrick Bishop. We re-live the tension of those terror-filled days

Daily Mail

Fascinating . . . gripping . . . Bishop tells the story of the liberation by reporting, as if he were there, how a rich cast of characters lived through its key moments

Sunday Telegraph

Gives a vivid impression of what it might have been like to be there on that wonderful day . . . for those who prefer their history to be romantic, this book is the one. It's all here . . . in full Technicolor, told at a blistering pace

Spectator

Excellent . . . a fresh, unexpected take on the liberation of Paris

Julian Jackson, author of France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pu00e9tain

Bishop writes with admirable brevity and insight

Sunday Times

An extraordinary moment of history brought to vivid, pulsing life. Rich with suspense and layered with intrigue

Sinclair McKay, author of Berlin

By far the best written study in English of this controversial topic of France under German rule . . . filled with charming anecdotes and lively sketches of the key figures in the liberation of Paris . . . What Bishop has produced is a nothing less than a love letter to the city of Paris

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