The book about Colonel Charles de Gaulle presented to the reader's court is not so much his biography as a description of one of the most turbulent periods in the history of France, which occurred during the years of political activity until now of an unknown army officer who had never been involved in politics before. Two narratives - about the political fate of de Gaulle and about the tragic fate of France of those years - go in the book, as it were, in parallel. De Gaulle's incredibly rapid rise to the very top of world politics began at a time of even more rapid collapse of France.