Through his books Resistance in Vichy France (1978), In Search of the Maquis (1993) and The French Resistance and its Legacy (2022), the historian Rod Kedward, who has died aged 86, transformed understanding of rural France under Nazi occupation during the second world war. His general history, La Vie en Bleu: France and the French Since 1900 (2005), also attracted a wide readership and the conferences he organised in 1984 and 1994 at the University of Sussex on Resistance and Liberation in France turbo-charged the field.
Kedward’s interest in “history from below” – as experienced by ordinary individuals rather than governments or leaders – prompted his decision in the 1970s to work on the grassroots of resistance and conduct interviews with witnesses. It was a bold move. French colleagues warned of the possibility of fabrication and fantasy. Nonetheless he was determined to talk to witnesses from the time.
