"Richard Vinen, a lecturer in history at King's College in London, has provided a convincing analysis of the complex bourgeois alliances in the Fourth Republic. His book faces squarely historiographical debates concerning the overall success of the regime and provides a far more detailed picture than heretofore available of how different bourgeois groups interacted and aided each other in the remaking of a neo-bourgeois France...It is necessary reading for all those engaged in graduate work on postwar France." Chiarella Esposito, History "...Vinen's special focus on the connections among the middle-class political parties, important business organizations...and the upper reaches of the civil service is unique...The great merit of Vinen's account, however, is to show that the post-World War II reconstruction of France began as a class affair in which, for a time, the bourgeousie triumphed over all others." The Historian
