World War II Database

"Is Paris burning?", asked Adolf Hitler anxiously at the conference table, referring to his order for Dietrich von Choltitz to raze the French capital before Allied capture. That question became the title of journalists Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins' 1965 book about the city of Paris, its occupation, and its liberation. Because lately I had been rather disappointed at many "history" titles written by journalists, I approach this work with skepticism, which, as I would later find, went away rather quickly. Lapierre and Collins did outstanding research for this book, and they were generally objective with their evaluation of various personalities on all sides of the conflict. Their narration was descriptive and greatly enjoyable, but what I valued the most was the authors' attempt to give names to the resistance fighters of France who collectively, and somewhat anonymously, played such an important role in the effort to thwart the Germans from French soil.

I had reviewed this title in its audio book format, released in 2012. Frederick Davidson did a fine job reading, although it took a little while for me to get used to the mannerism of his speech. When he voice acted non-English speakers, Hitler for example, he used a flat monotone that reminded me of alien and robot characters of science fiction films of a past era.

Although Is Paris Burning? had been available for so many years, and there had been many other titles on the liberation of Paris since, I felt that this 50-year-old title still offered me a great deal of knowledge and enjoyment.