Usually a consumer of first person history, but this subject is too broad for that to be of utility or bring understanding. Shirer captures the puts and takes. I couldn’t help uttering “no!” so many times. The French, in spite of their love of democracy and liberalism, undercut their institutions and let their republic be led to the gallows. Their leaders played politics instead of taking opportunities and their military was led by the lessons of the last war.

The book is a good mix of the tactical and the strategic. A must read for a student of how democracies can fall.