The General: Charles De Gaulle and the France He Saved
“Jonathan Fenby's biography, entitled simplyThe General, is large but not overweight. . . .While not hiding de Gaulle's vanities and conceits (more highlighted than alleviated by odd moments of self-doubt), Mr. Fenby does not question that de Gaulle supplied his disheartened countrymen with a necessary myth, about himself and about France's place in the world; he made little distinction between the two. . . . Mr. Fenby misses little in the way of nice detail.” (The Wall Street Journal)“A keen biography conveying the French general’s driving sense of destiny. . . . With a nod to previous (French) studies by Jean Lacouture, Eric Roussel, Alain Peyrefitte, as well as the general’s own extensive memoirs, this work is astute and psychologically probing.” (Kirkus)“Fenby’s will be an obligatory purchase.” (Booklist)“Dare I call a 707-page biography a page-turner? For once, the fake enthusiasm of blurb prose rings true.  I did 'finish the book in one sitting,' as another chestnut has it, though the sitting was a very flight of 16 hours.  And why? Because Jonathan Fenby, a former editor ofThe Observer of Londonand a prolific author, knows how to turn breadth and depth into enthrallment.” (Joseph Joffe -The New York Times Book Review)