Thread by @Cgzinsou

Oh God. WHELP. Gather round and I'll give ya a list of works that *hopefully* strikes yer fancy.

Um. First. Well. Everyone should first read Paxton's 'Vichy France,' it's still a seminal work even though he published it in 1972.

AFTER THAT. Leggo...

https://twitter.com/tlecaque/status/1406009248786550787

1. books about fighting 'n such. Robert Forczyk's 'Case Red' covers the Battle of France after the Allied defeat at Dunkirk until the Armistice, by then there was lots of fighting in S France. Um...until August 1944 there wasn't any fighting in France then there was DRAGOON

2. The best work imo is still the Army Green Book, 'Riviera to the Rhine' by Clarke and Smith. It's free at the CMH website. For a more popular history, check out Yeide and @WWIPhD 'First to the Rhine.' I quite like Kundahl's 'The Riviera at War,' very good history of the coast.

3. In French, Pierre Balliot's 'la Drôme dans la guerre: la bataille de Montélimar' is damned near a seminal work. Robert Vernin's 'On se bat a Montélimar' is a memoir about the Battle of Montélimar, the biggest battle American forces fought during Dragoon.

4. I would be remiss if I didn't mention de Lattre's memoir "The History of the First French Army." Arthur L. Funk's 'Hidden Ally' is a great history about the resistance, OSS, SOE, and Allied armies during Dragoon.

5. Julian Jackson has a lot of excellent work that has extensive sections on S France but isn't exclusively about that area. Thinking here of 'The Fall of France' and 'France: The Dark Years,' the latter of which is a seminal work (that I wish would get updated!!! 2001)

6. For Vichy public opinion, see Laborie's 'l'opinion Française sous Vichy.' For a Mediterranean perspective, Douglas Porch, 'The Path to Victory' has extensive coverage of S Fr and Fr's position in the Med. Worth visiting is Rude's 'Libération de Lyon et de sa region'

7. Argh, back to combat stuff, Wilt's 'The French Riviera Campaign of August 1944' is a good popular history, so is Adleman's 'The Champagne Campaign' but the latter is mostly about the 1st Airborne Task Force.

8. For religion, Zaretsky's 'Nîmes at War' and W.D. Halls 'Politics, Society, and Christianity in Vichy France' are the essential works here.

For daily life? MY DISSERTATION. But also Fogg 'The Politics of Everyday Life in Vichy France,' Sweet's 'Choices in Vichy France,'

9. ...continued on daily life, Burrin's 'France and the Germans,' but that encompasses the entire country. I would also recommend Sandra Ott's 'Living with the Enemy,' but that's about the French Pyrennes.

For memory, anything by Henry Rousso. Also Nossiter 'The Algeria Hotel,'

10. Ofc he should watch Marcel Ophuls documentary 'The Sorrow and the Pity,' which along with Paxton's book, shattered France's collective memory about the war.

For the Holocaust, Paxton and Marrus, 'Vichy France and the Jews' (another seminal work)...

11. Ryan's 'The Holocaust and the Jews of Marseille,' Moorehead's 'Village of Secrets' (though some of the history has been questioned by other scholars)

Damnit! I forgot Dufour's 'le débarquement en Provence' for another book about Dragoon.

12. Serre et all, 'Des indésirables: Les camps d’internement et de travail dans l’Ardèche et la Drôme Durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale' is a local history that has a lot of good and deep detail about those two departments.

13. On that note, Coustary et all, "Drômoises, Drômois et la seconde guerre Mondiale: subir…mais lutter" is another excellent local history of the area.

14. For the Italian occupation @EmanueleHistory's 'Mussolini's Army in the French Riviera' is a must-read. Also see Ranero, Romain H. 'La Commission Italienne d’Armistice avec la France: les rapports entre la France de Vichy et l’Italie de Mussolini.'

15. A dense environmental history of Vichy in Pearson's 'Scarred Landscapes: War and Nature in Vichy France.'

16. That's about all I got right now thinking about books on s Fr in WW2. If you have a specific request I'm sure I can dig up more, or if you want more specific subject matter that doesn't tie just to S Fr I have tons more recs. Hope it helps