Few images more shocked the French population during the Occupation than the photograph of Marshal Philippe Pétain - the great French hero of the First World War - shaking the hand of Hitler on 20 October 1940. In a radio speech after this meeting, Pétain told the French people that he was 'entering down the road of collaboration'. 5 years later, in July 1945, the hour of judgement arrived. Pétain was brought before a specially created High Court to answer for his conduct between the signing of the armistice with Germany in June 1940 and the Liberation of France in August 1944. Julian Jackson uses Pétain's 3-week trial as a lens through which to examine the central crisis of 20th-century French history. This blends politics and personal drama to explore how different national factions sought to try to claim the past, or establish their interpretation of it, as a way of claiming the present and future.