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French security policy has posed a puzzle to many people outside France, including politicians and even defense specialists such as the author, who took time off from his administrative position in Whitehall in order to study French thinking about security in detail. As with many other studies, he takes as his point of departure the traumatic defeat of 1940 but argues that the origins of current French policy are grounded in events and ideas that go back hundreds of years. They are ideas that are scarcely known or often misinterpreted in the Anglo-Saxon world.
List of contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1. Political Truth and Symbolic Politics
Chapter 2. The Universal Mission
Chapter 3. Grandeur and Misery
Chapter 4. Errors Not to Be Repeated
Chapter 5. Death and the Soul
Chapter 6. The Far Side of Despair
Chapter 7. Weakness and Fear
Chapter 8. The Rebels and the Sovereign
Chapter 9. Charles the Great and the God-King
Conclusion: The past and the Future
Bibliography
Index
About the author
David Chuter works at the Ministry of Defence, London
Summary
French security policy has posed a puzzle to many people outside France, including politicians and even defense specialists such as the author, who took time off from his administrative position in Whitehall in order to study French thinking about security in detail. As with many other studies, he takes as his point of departure the traumatic defeat of 1940 but argues that the origins of current French policy are grounded in events and ideas that go back hundreds of years. They are ideas that are scarcely known or often misinterpreted in the Anglo-Saxon world.
Additional text
"... attractively written and grounded in a wide range of secondary sources." · The International History Review
