Bloch, Marc

Strange Defeat: A Statement of Evidence Written in 1940

London, England: Geoffrey Cumberlege/ Oxford University Press, 1949. First Edition. Hardcover. "Marc Bloch, a world-renowned medieval historian who was read and valued by scholars far beyond the Sorbonne, of which he was a distinguished member, had many devoted friends in England. He fought in both World Wars, and in 1942, when fifty, became active in the French Resistance. Two years later he was caught by the Germans, tortured, and executed. This book, left in draft, is a moving document and a penetrating analysis of the disaster he witnessed at first hand. Though written early in the Occupation, it is free from bitterness and recrimination, and its detailed criticism of the French disaster is conducted throughout with detachment and intellectual integrity. As a study throwing light on one of the great crises of Western civilization it will become a classic, for it brings in evidence not gossip and personal malice but a considered appraisal of all the factors, social as well as military, which, since 1870, had undermined French national solidarity. Written with the clarity and logic which distinguish the best French prose, its publication is a fitting memorial to a man of noble ideas, heroic purpose, and searching intellect." (front flap) The poignant, indeed now-classic analytical work of history as it was being made by Marc Leopold Benjamin Bloch (1886-1944), the brilliant & heroic Jewish-French historian. First published in this edition during 1949, five years after Bloch's death at the very hands of the occupying Nazis whose victory over France in 1940 he so sharply depicted. Translated from the French into English by Gerard Hopkins (no apparent relation to the great British poet), with an introduction by Sir Maurice Powicke (1879-1963, an honored British Medieval historian) & a foreword by Georges Altman (1901-1960, a French Resistance fighter & journalist). Hardcover in unclipped dust jacket, first edition published in the UK by the venerable Oxford University Press, presumed first printing with no reference to further printings on copyright page. An essential eyewitness account & analysis of a key chapter of the Second World War in its rarest original form, particularly scarce complete with dust jacket. Book in good-to-near-fine condition with light wear, fading to edges & corners of front, back cover & spine; small areas of significant rubbing & fading at upper margins/ edges of red-colored cloth front & back covers (remainder of covers, spine very fine, gilt lettering & graphics on spine only slightly dulled & mostly intact); mild-to-moderate rubbing, browning & spotting to edges of text block. Interior fine with mild-to-moderate browning, occasional spotting to blank paste-downs & endpapers; vintage, very British, quaint & stately bookplate of previous owner affixed to front paste-down; miniscule bumps at corners of a few page leaves. Unrestored dust jacket good-to-near-fine with mild rubbing, scratching, spotting & spot-staining to front, back covers & esp. spine; mild wear & some tiny bumps, creases at edges & corners of same & flaps; several short, partially closed tears esp. at lower spine-margin/ edge, lower flap corners with slight loss of paper; small area of tape repair at lower spine-margin/ edge, corners & extending slightly onto covers; slight fading of letters at spine. Good- Near Fine / Good- Near Fine. [Item #4880]

Price: $100.00