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A moving, dramatic social history of the liberation of Paris in 1944, one of the most inspiring and momentous events of the twentieth century. The fall of Paris to the Nazis on June 14th, 1940, was one of the darkest days of World War II. And the liberation of the city on August 25th, 1944, felt like the brightest. The liberation was also the biggest party of the century: champagne flowed freely, total strangers embraced�it was a celebration of life renewed against the backdrop of the world's favorite city, as experienced by the likes of Ernest Hemingway, J. D. Salinger, Pablo Picasso, and Robert Capa. But there was nothing preordained about this happy ending. Had things transpired differently, Paris might have gone down as a ghastly monument to Nazi nihilism. Paris 1944�timed for the eightieth anniversary of the liberation of Paris�tells the story of those iridescent days in a startling new way. Cutting through decades of myth-making, the reader watches the city�s fate hanging in the balance against the drama, heroism, joy, and suspense of one of the most explosive moments of the twentieth century.