FRANCOIS MITTERRAND(密特朗总统传)

Even in death, Mitterrand remains a controversial and contradictory figure. After the Nazi conquest of France, he spent a year working for the collaborationist Vichy government; yet by 1944 he was a major figure in the French Resistance. Although he was a committed socialist, he was an imperious, aloof man who was never comfortable with those on the lower social rungs. He spoke out eloquently against anti-Semitism, but he defended associates who had aided the persecution of Jews under the Vichy regime. Tiersky, who teaches politics at Amherst College and specializes in French political culture, views Mitterrand as an immensely gifted man whose personality quirks prevented him from becoming a truly great democratic politician. Like Richard Nixon, Mitterand was an inherently suspicious person who feared that associates were plotting against him, and he seemed to delight in launching his own Machiavellian maneuvers. A vital, valuable work for understanding the politics and history of post^-World War II France. Jay Freeman　Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved .

Book Description
Fran?ois Mitterrand was a controversial politician with a contested strategy and a flawed character. In spite of being one of France's most detested political figures, he was also undoubtedly one of twentieth century Europe's most substantial, durable and statesmanlike leaders. From his much-disputed passages at Vichy during WWII through the major policies of his presidency, Mitterrand's career is a lens through which one can view the anxieties, fears, and instabilities, as well as achievements and successes of contemporary French political history. In this first major political biography since his death, Ronald Tiersky looks at the contradiction that was Mitterrand and the legacy he left to France and the world. This promises to be the standard book on this great world leader for years to come.

From Publishers Weekly
The multitude of Fran?ois Mitterrand's political guises, and the ease with which he discarded one to don another, have led many commentators to cite relentless ambition as the guiding principle of the late French president's career. Tiersky (France in the New Europe, etc.) insists, to the contrary, that the conundrums of Mitterrand's public life were due to the constancy of his personal convictions. During his more than half a century as a public figure in France, Mitterrand re-created himself continuously. He was a member of both the Vichy regime and the Resistance. He opposed Charles de Gaulle's policy on Algeria, while positioning himself as the leader of the French socialist movement. His adoption of socialist reforms at the beginning of his first term as president, in 1981, plunged the nation into a decade-long economic crisis, yet he won reelection and served as president for no less than 14 years. Tiersky does not seek to hide the enigmatic nature of his subject; instead, he traces minutely the many threads of Mitterrand's philosophical wanderings. His crisp, energetic narration gives both a sense of the biographer's fascination with his subject and an appreciation for the sheer breadth of Mitterrand's experience. The author succeeds in untwining the many conflicting motivations for Mitterrand's maneuvers, but perhaps is less adept at proving his thesis: that a single thread of principle linked the man's political experiments. In portraying Mitterrand (and thus rejecting de Gaulle) as the embodiment of postwar France, Tiersky proclaims that ambiguity has been the defining characteristic of recent French history. (July)

From Booklist
Even in death, Mitterrand remains a controversial and contradictory figure. After the Nazi conquest of France, he spent a year working for the collaborationist Vichy government; yet by 1944 he was a major figure in the French Resistance. Although he was a committed socialist, he was an imperious, aloof man who was never comfortable with those on the lower social rungs. He spoke out eloquently against anti-Semitism, but he defended associates who had aided the persecution of Jews under the Vichy regime. Tiersky, who teaches politics at Amherst College and specializes in French political culture, views Mitterrand as an immensely gifted man whose personality quirks prevented him from becoming a truly great democratic politician. Like Richard Nixon, Mitterand was an inherently suspicious person who feared that associates were plotting against him, and he seemed to delight in launching his own Machiavellian maneuvers. A vital, valuable work for understanding the politics and history of post^-World War II France.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Jay Freeman

About Author
Ronald Tiersky has taught politics at Amherst College since 1973. In 1980-1982, he was head of the Johns Hopkins SAIS Bologna Center in Italy. His other books are France in the New Europe, Ordinary Stalinism, and French Communism.

Book Dimension
Height (mm) 235 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 Width (mm) 156