A masterpiece … Today it retains an eerie prescience. Looking to the past, Weil spoke to future generations who would feel, as she did, that history is a trap we only half understand … luminous

One of the most important writings of a unique, flawed and controversial genius, this book warns that modern societies will only be able to resist fascism by a wholesale spring-cleaning of our political imagination in the light of spiritual practice. An excellent, lucid and readable new translation

This is one of those books which ought to be studied by the young before their leisure has been lost and their capacity for thought destroyed; books the effect of which, we can only hope, will become apparent in the attitude of mind of another generation

The patron saint of all outsiders

The only great spirit of our time

A splendid book ... The central narrative of the trial grips like a thriller ... Jackson's vivid prose is leavened by wit and sharpened by telling details ... This is a substantial achievement by a historian at the top of his game.

In France on Trial, his masterful account of the case, the historian Julian Jackson explains that it was not just Pétain who was being called to account, but the whole of France.

Painstakingly researched ... Jackson vividly reconstructs the drama.

An enthralling book ... The past is dangerous, you see. Real, hard history of this kind can reach out of the page and stick its thumb in your eye. Who needs fiction when the truth is as gripping as this? 5/5 stars.

An essential key to understanding the country's recent past.

A scrupulous and vivid reconstruction of the trial

'It is a sound approach to cover such a big canvas, one that springs to life thanks to Jackson's command of sources and exquisite use of anecdotes. ... There is a cinematic quality to the way Jackson brings us into the packed courtroom ... Listening to the testimonies, we too wrestle with terrible dilemmas'

Professor Jackson's clear exposition of a criminal trial in the context of modern French history is an excellent illustration of a certain class of case with serious political consequences, beyond those of the accused.

I have nothing but praise for the way Jackson tells the story, with a clear elucidation of the swirling political passions, and vivid portraits of the heroes and villains, and those in between.

Julian Jackson's France on Trial is one of those instant classic history books that are immediately recognisable as a masterpiece of scholarship. Although ostensibly about Marshal Petain's trial in the aftermath of the Second World War, Jackson weaves in all the main issues regarding French resistance versus collaboration, and the profound chiaroscuro between the extremes. I read it in Lyon, where the superb Resistance Museum records in powerful detail the crimes of Klaus Barbie and others, and it proved the perfect intellectual backdrop for the trip.

Brilliantly researched and vividly narrated ... Jackson manages to engage the reader, adopting a rich literary style to communicate ... the atmosphere in and outside of the court and the personality of the characters ... Riveting.

[An] outstanding book ... Jackson's vivid, stylish, sometimes even cinematic reconstruction suggests this court case was about far more than one elderly man ... Jackson skilfully evokes the trial scene's atmosphere... [a] gripping and timely book.

Highly detailed ... an impressive command of the nuances of this trial ... authoritative.

This account of Philippe Petain’s 1945 trial for treason is a superb achievement, both reconstructing France’s Vichy shame and thoughtfully analysing its aftermath.

Perhaps the history book of the year. Jackson understands France like few others: he looks in vivid fashion at the trial of the arch-collaborator, and how the actions of a man who had embodied France’s heroism in the Great War became, 20 years later, the symbol of its shame … he subtly argues that the whole French nation, and not just its disgraced leader, was on trial.

France on Trial stands out – a meticulously researched, attractively written account of the trial of the first world war hero turned Nazi collaborator Marshal Petain and its woeful Vichy background. Excellent on Petain’s legacy in modern right-wing French politics, Jackson adopts the requisite tone for a historian of our times, interrogating uncomfortable truths with objectivity mixed with lightness of touch.

This extraordinary book exposes how various sides in the Petain debate have manipulated the historical record in a desperate attempt to make the past palatable.

Julian Jackson’s France on Trial grapples with the life and (mis)deeds of Philippe Pétain—the French general who led the Vichy regime during the Second World War—and the country’s dark feelings of hatred and guilt after the war.