I've been reading a little about French history and a few things really interested me. Specifically: the life and death of Joan of Arc, the period of the French Revolution (or the enlightenment in general), and the French resistance under German occupation in WWII.
I looked through the commonly asked questions and the wiki on history by region but didn't find anything on the time periods I'm interested in. I am really hoping for higher level info on these periods in France, so I would rather avoid dramatizations and history channel specials, which is why I came here.
If you guys yourselves know a bit about these times feel free to comment with what you have! Ideally though, I'm hoping for some secondary or primary sources that will go in depth, and preferably in English since I can't read or speak even conversational French. If that's not really possible I'll come to terms and just surf Wikipedia or something.
Hello, not my field of expertise, but I cannot recommend Julian Jackson's France: The Dark Years highly enough, it is a great summary of the Occupation of France as a whole. It is a very detailed and highly readable exploration of not just the events but the effects and reactions to occupation amongst disparate elements of French Society. It is worth noting that the book does cover resistance but only as an element as part of the wider narrative, and the book spends a lot of time discussing the relative lack of resistance and mythology/politicisation of resistance in Post-War France - which to me is fascinating but if you are looking for a narrative account of daring actions and key individuals it may be a bit much.
In terms of the French Revolution I am even more out of my depth - and this suggestion again reflects my preoccupation with intellectual/social history - but Jonathan Israel's Revolutionary Ideas was a great read. It charts the rise of different strands of thought which evolved and rose and fell as the revolution changed and developed with the rise and fall of different group. Crudely put: he argues that it is worth seeing the Revolution almost as a series of revolutions rather than a monolithic action. Now his book is not without criticism and some of this is not new however I enjoyed this over a lot of the more narrative accounts I have read which never really felt got 'hold' of the nature of the revolution and why/how it developed like it did.
I am told Mike Duncan has a good series on the revolution on his podcasts, his Rome series was pretty good for a narrative and seemed to get the caveated 'Its ok so long as you know that this is a reductionist narrative account etc' (high praise - search 'Dan Carlin' here for proof) from the informed folks here - but is made for more easy listening while cooking/cleaning/communting (now I am giving you too much of an insight into my sad thrilling life) so it is not necessarily a bad shout.
Also I really like For the Soul of France by Brown - its not in your list but a really fascinating read about the battle between Catholicism and Secularism in the 19th and early 20th century - it goes a long way to explain a profoundly important, yet under-considered part of the era.