When Paris Went Dark: The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940%E2%80%931944

When Hitler toured his legendary conquest in 1940, occupied Paris was sinking into a colorless tedium of paranoia and oppression punctuated by grey-clad Germans and miserable Parisians suffering from shortages and overregulation. Rosbottom, professor of French and European Studies at Amherst College, delivers distinctive, humanizing anecdotes that, while occasionally lacking attribution or further identifying context, otherwise illuminate well-documented events of the occupation. After the rise of the weak, disorganized, youth-driven resistance movement and the hunt for increasingly marginalized and imperiled Jews, the bureaucrat-driven 1944 liberation and violent aftermath of the post-occupation period seem almost anti-climactic. Bolstered by a user-friendly chronology and list of personalities, Rosbottom packs his tales with memorable descriptions of both the subtle and overwhelming changes that seeped into daily life, making for a moving portrayal of the awkward coexistence of occupation%E2%80%94from the vantage points of both weary Parisians and confused, low-level German soldiers alike. Rosbottom highlights how leaderless, ordinary people and their formerly glittering city turned as grey as the occupiers' uniforms. Maps & photos. (Aug.)