Solon Beinfeld received his Ph.D. in history at Harvard University. While working on his dissertation as a Fulbright Fellow in Paris, he witnessed the fall of the Fourth Republic and the return of de Gaulle. He taught Modern European, Modern French, and Modern Jewish History at Washington University in St. Louis for many years and subsequently also at Tufts University. He resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Though Jackson has a generally favorable opinion of de Gaulle, he makes no attempt to hide his difficult personality and his craftily dishonest manipulation of people and institutions. The result is both even-handed and definitive.