No leader of modern times was more unique & more uniquely national than Charles de Gaulle. As founder & first President of the Fifth Republic, General de Gaulle saw himself `carrying France on my shoulders`. When he first emerged on to the world stage in 1940, his insistence that he spoke for his nation might well have appeared impossibly arrogant for a recently promoted junior general who had never been elected to anything. But he personified many of the traits of his country which fascinate the rest of the world
- its pride in itself, its intransigence, its historical & cultural heritage & its quasi-religious belief in the state. Le General, as he became known from 1940 on, appeared as if carved from a single monumental block, but was, in fact, extremely complex, a man with deep personal feelings & recurrent mood swings, devoted to his family & often seeking reassurance from those around him. Though insisting on discipline & loyalty from others, he was a great rebel. A grand visionary with a vast geo-political grasp & elephantine memory, he was also a supreme tactician with a taste for secrecy & the ability to out-flank opponents. This is a magisterial, sweeping biography of one of the great leaders of the twentieth century & of the country with which he so identified himself. Written with terrific verve & narrative skill, & yet rigorous & detailed, it brings alive as never before the private man as well as the public leader through exhaustive research & astute analysis.