Camus’s renowned debut novel, The Stranger (1942), tells the story of an alienated, aimless young Algerian man who falls into the wrong crowd and ultimately commits the murder of an Arab. His later imprisonment and trial illustrate Camus’s perspective on the absurdity of life.

Vichy France (revised edition, 2001) by Robert O. Paxton is a seminal work examining France during the German occupation in World War II. Paxton reveals how the Pétain government pursued a dual agenda: implementing an authoritarian and racist revolution domestically while attempting to convince Hitler to recognize this new France as a partner in a German-dominated Europe.

Alfred Cobban’s A History of Modern France: 1871–1962 (1965) offers an engaging overview of modern French history, covering the harrowing years of the German occupation and the Vichy regime.

In Plagues and People (updated edition, 1998), William H. McNeill explores the profound political, demographic, ecological, and psychological effects that infectious diseases have had on human history. McNeill covers various topics, including the medieval Black Death, the smallpox epidemic in Mexico following the Spanish conquest, the bubonic plague in China, and the typhoid epidemic in Europe.