num_pages: 308
description: Historians of the Cold War, argues William Hitchcock, have toooften overlooked the part that European nations played in shaping the post-World War II international system. In particular, France, a country beset by economic difficulties and political instability in the aftermath of the war, has been given short shrift.With this book, Hitchcock restores France to the narrativeof Cold War history and illuminates its central role in thereconstruction of Europe. Drawing on a wide array of evidencefrom French, American, and British archives, he shows that Franceconstructed a coherent national strategy for domestic andinternational recovery and pursued that strategy with tenacityand effectiveness in the first postwar decade. This once-occupiednation played a vital part in the occupation and administrationof Germany, framed the key institutions of the "new" Europe, helped forge the NATO alliance, and engineered an astonishingeconomic recovery. In the process, France successfully contestedAmerican leadership in Europe and used its position as a key ColdWar ally to extract concessions from Washington on a wide rangeof economic and security issues.
language: English
title: France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944-1954
titlecomplete: France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944-1954
genres: History
ratings_count: 14
series: New Cold War History
publisher: The University of North Carolina Press