A history of Paris, via the Metro.

ISBN: 0 7195 6062 4

Illuminating, dramatic, compellingly readable, this landmark book recreates the terrible events in Europe at the close of the Second World War.

Unlike the Napoleonic Wars and the First World War, there was no peace settlement in 1945. The shape of Europe was determined entirely by military force, dividing it into two halves which corresponded to neither geography, culture nor previous history.

With Gregor Dallas we re-live the vast events of the end of the war years in the experience of real people, opening in Berlin on the day of Hitler's suicide, where life, such as it existed, continued in the streets, ruins and cellars of the city. We live too with the armies in the field, and with civilians, particularly in booming wartime Washington, bombed London, liberated Paris, annihilated Warsaw, doomed Berlin, and Moscow gripped by poverty and secret terror.

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The 17 months from April 1814 to August 1815 were an extraordinary period in European history; a period which saw two sieges of Paris, a complete revision of Europe's political frontiers, an international Congress set up in Vienna, civil war in Italy and international war in Belgium. This book tells the story of these days through the perspectives of three very different European cities: the great metropolis of London, post-revolutionary Paris, and baroque Vienna.

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This text traces the transition from war to peace across Europe after World War I. It follows the movement of armies over the northern plains, their collapse, their demobilization, and the effect this had on the material life of people.