• Charles de Gaulle

  • By: Don Cook
  • Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
  • Length: 22 hrs and 49 mins
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Release date: 04-09-09
  • Language: English
  • Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars 4.3 (47 ratings)

Regular price: $31.47

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Publisher's Summary

This magnificent volume by veteran European correspondent Don Cook is the first major biography of de Gaulle written by an American from an American perspective. Rich with new anecdotal material, it offers fresh evaluations and sheds new light on Europe's most controversial and enigmatic general, politician, and statesman. Arrogant, haughty, single-minded in war, politics, and his personal life, Charles de Gaulle ranks in many ways as the most powerful personality of an epoch blessed (and cursed) with powerful men. Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, Truman, Kennedy, and Khrushchev: all locked horns with de Gaulle, and all eventually bowed to his wishes.
This exciting biography takes full measure of the man and full measure of his times, when great soldiers and statesmen fought center stage and the fate of the world hung in the balance.
©1983 Don Cook (P)1997 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
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Critic Reviews

"No one has done a better job in painting the real de Gaulle...an outstanding biography." ( New York Times)
"De Gaulle's career may have been an ordeal for his contemporaries, but in Cook's hands it has become a delight for readers." ( Time)
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful
5 out of 5 stars
By Wallen on 04-20-11

A great book about a complex person

Well written and thoroughly researched, is this book about Charles de Gaulle. I like books that create emotions and this book really makes me loathe Charles de Gaulle. Having listened to it with great interest, I know understand why de Gaulle upset som many people in his life. He was completely obnoxious. Here we have real events, where most occurred in my parents' and my own life time. Thus I have the benefit of having actually heard of - or in some cases actually experienced - the events pictured in this book. As far as I understand the author tells the story from de Gaulle's viewpoint, but also from the viewpoints of the people with whom he interacted. This book I could listen to again (and that is a good grade).

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4 of 5 people found this review helpful

4 out of 5 stars
By Presbyter on 10-23-10

Well done, but....

This magisterial biography is well known in the vast literature on the subject character. It is well recorded by and large, but here I venture some reservations. I have found this particular narrator to be a bit too "arch" and "overly-Britsy" for me taste, though he has done several of the serious history works I've purchased. Someone does however need to correct pronunciations e.g.: the British battleship "Resolution" pronounced as if it were a French word; and the well-known American Admiral Leahy prononunced as "Lee-hee". Minor yes, but annoying.
Also there is a practice I've noticed in other recordings: the tendency to imitate the real or imagined voice of someone quoted. Here Churchill is given a sort of commonplace imitation treatment by the narrator. I'm not sure if this practice is professional or too "show biz" for me.

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2 of 3 people found this review helpful

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful
1 out of 5 stars
By Amazon Customer on 02-20-13

Interesting content, AWFUL narrator

This book is very interesting in its content. Unfortunately the narrator has decided to read the whole thing in a voice that is, quite frankly, beyond ridiculous. I have no idea what he was aiming at - some sort of debonair British diplomat, but it is completely unnatural and totally distracting. Makes the book almost un-listenable. Shame as, like I say, the content is fascinating.

Suggest a re-record for this one.

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3 of 3 people found this review helpful

5 out of 5 stars
By D. J. C on 11-14-16

Absorbing book on significant 20c leader.

Very well researched and written book. Liked the narrators style once you get used him.

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