Director of Research

s.kitson@ulip.lon.ac.uk

Research interests

Dr Kitson is currently writing three books. Manchester University Press commissioned him to write a general history of France during the Second World War which is scheduled for publication in 2009 under the title Experiencing Nazi Occupation: France 1940-45. He has been asked to write a history of France for Palgrave’s Essential Histories series. Finally he is preparing a book about the Allied bombing of France during World War Two. This will be published in 2012 by the University of Chicago Press under the title Death and Liberation, The Allied airforces and Nazi Occupied France.

He is happy to supervise research students on any aspect of Twentieth Century French History and in particular the history of German Occupations in France.

Dr Kitson has taught at the Université de Paris-XII and the University of Birmingham as well as at Secondary Schools in Quebec and Marseille. His main teaching specialisation is French history and in particular Vichy France and the occupation but he also has experience of teaching other aspects of French Studies.

Publications

Books

• Kitson, S, Death and Liberation, The Allied Airforces and Nazi Occupied France, Chicago/London, University of Chicago Press, (forthcoming 2012)
• Kitson, S, A History of France, Palgrave, Basingstoke, (forthcoming 2010)
• Kitson, S, Experiencing Nazi Occupation, France 1940-1945, Manchester, Manchester University Press, (forthcoming 2009)
• Kitson, S, The Hunt for Nazi Spies, Fighting Espionage in Vichy France, Chicago/London, University of Chicago Press, 2008.
• Kitson, S, Vichy et la chasse aux espions nazis, Complexités de la politique de collaboration, Paris, Autrement, 2005.

Edited books

Diamond, H & Kitson, S, (eds), Vichy, Resistance, Liberation, New Perspectives on Wartime France, Berg, Oxford, 2005.

Articles/Book Chapters

• Kitson, S, ‘Was the Zeal for Real?’ The Marseille Police and the German Forced Labour Draft’ (under review for French History)
• Kitson, S,  ‘Vichy à la chasse aux agents allemands’, in Sébastien Laurent (ed), Renseignement politique, politique du renseignement et politisation du renseignement, Bordeaux, PUB, (forthcoming 2009).
• Kitson, S,  ‘Creating a nation of Resisters? Improving French self-image, 1944-1946’ in RIERA, Monica & SCHAFFER, Gavin (eds), The Lasting War: Society and Identity in Britain, France and Germany after 1945, Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2008.
• Jackson, P & Kitson, S,  ‘The paradoxes of foreign policy in Vichy France’ in ADELMAN, Jonathan (ed), Hitler and his Allies, London, Routledge, October 2007.
• Kitson, S,  ‘Police and politics in Marseille, 1936-1938’, European History Quarterly, Volume 37, No. 1, January 2007, pp 81-108.
• Kitson, S,  ‘Spying for Germany in Vichy France, 1940-1942’, History Today, January 2006, pp 38-48.
• Kitson, S,  (with Hanna Diamond) ‘One historian and his occupation: Rod Kedward’ in DIAMOND, Hanna & KITSON, Simon (eds), Vichy , Resistance, Liberation, Oxford , Berg, 2005, pp 1-14.
• Kitson, S,  ‘From enthusiasm to disenchantment. The French Police and the Vichy regime’, Contemporary European History, Volume 11, Issue number 3, August 2002, pp 371-390.
• Kitson, S,  ‘Police & Public Service’, History Today, August 2002, pp 32-34.
• Kitson, S,  ‘French Police, German Troops and the destruction of the old districts of Marseille, 1943’, in KNAFLA, Louis, Policing and war in Europe, Greenwood Press, 2002, pp 133-145.
• Kitson, S,  ‘Marseille à l’épreuve du politique de 1936 à 1939’, in BERLIERE, Jean-Marc & PESCHANSKI, Denis (eds), La police en France des années trente aux années soixante, Paris, Documentation Française, 2000, pp 43-58.
• Kitson, S,  ‘L'évolution de la Résistance dans la police marseillaise’, in GUILLON, Jean-Marie & MENCHERINI, Robert (eds), La Résistance et les Européens du Sud, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2000, pp 257-270.
• Kitson, S,  ‘Arresting Nazi spies in Vichy France, 1940-1942’, Intelligence & National Security, Spring 2000, pp 80-120.
• Kitson, S,  ‘Les policiers marseillais et le Front Populaire’, Vingtième Siècle, January 2000, pp 47-58.
• Kitson, S,  ‘The Police & the Clichy Massacre, March 1937’, in BESSEL, Richard & EMSLEY, Clive (eds), 'Patterns of Provocation', Oxford, Berghahn, 2000, pp 29-40.
• Kitson, S,  ‘Rehabilitation and Frustration: The Experience of Marseille Police Officers after the Liberation’, Journal of Contemporary History, Volume 33, No 4, 1998, pp 621-38.
• Kitson, S,  ‘The police and the deportation of Jews from the Bouches-du-Rhône in August and September 1942’, Modern and Contemporary France, Vol 5, N° 3, August 1997, pp 309-319.
• Kitson, S,  ‘Police and public in France : an overview’ in PERRY, Sheila & CROSS, Maire, (eds) Voices of France, London , Pinter, 1997, pp 187-200.
• Kitson, S,  ‘The police in the Liberation of Paris’ in KEDWARD, H.R & WOOD, Nancy, (eds) The Liberation of France . Image and Event, Oxford , Berg, 1995, pp 43-57.
• Kitson, S,  ‘La reconstitution de la police à Marseille, août 1944 - février 1945’, Provence Historique, fascicule 178, October 1994, pp 497-509.

Dictionary entries

Kitson, S,  ‘Historical overview: France, 1939-1968’, 5000 word entry in MURRAY, Christopher John (ed), Encyclopaedia of modern French thought, London, Fitzroy Dearborn, 2004.

Articles on web-sites

• Kitson, S, Bousquet, Touvier and Papon: Three Vichy personalities
  http://www.port.ac.uk/special/france1815to2003/chapter8/interviews/filetodownload,27676,en.pdf
• Kitson, S, The French police under the Vichy regime
  http://www.port.ac.uk/special/france1815to2003/chapter8/interviews/filetodownload,18931,en.pdf

Web-page

Simon Kitson’s Vichy web  http://artsweb.bham.ac.uk/vichy/

Marks of Esteem

7500 FF prize awarded to Doctoral Thesis in 1995 by the Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Sécurité Intérieure (IHESI), Paris

Research Grants awarded by the British Academy (three times), the AHRB (see www.ahrb.ac.uk/images/4_98588.pd ), the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung and the Society for the Study of French History.

Chercheur Associé, Institut d’Histoire du Temps Présent, 2000-2001

British Correspondent, Vingtième Siècle, Revue d’Histoire, 1996-Present

British Correspondent, Varian Fry Foundation, 1997-1999

Humboldt Fellow, 2007-2008

Fellow of the Royal Historical Society

Guest Researcher, Universität Albert-Ludwig Freiburg im Breisgau, 2007-2008 (host Prof Franz Brüggermeier)

Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of War and Culture Studies, 2006-Present

Associate member of the European Centre for Police Studies in Milton Keynes

Member of the book review advisory panel of the H-France history distribution list

Co-Editor of H-France, 2006-2007

Regular referee for publishers and journals

Reviews of The Hunt for Nazi Spies

“It is often said that the best things come in the smallest packages, and this could certainly be applied to this latest book by Simon Kitson. In less than 200 pages he has managed to contextualize and survey a little-known, but nonetheless important aspect of the history of Vichy France in a highly accessible and lucid way.... In sum, this book provides a fascinating insight into the shady world of wartime espionage that should be required reading for any serious student of Vichy France”
(Bob Moore, French History 2008 22(2), pp 247-249 http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/22/2/247)

“Mr. Kitson is a historian's historian: a patient, meticulous master of the archives, a disciplined analyst, a servant of the evidence…..Mr. Kitson's book is a flawless piece of professional history: original, thorough, subtle, appropriately measured. It has been and will continue to be admired for these reasons”
(Claire Berlinski, New York Sun, 2 January 2008) http://www.nysun.com/article/68759?page_no=1

“Despite excitable claims on book jackets, the number of original historical discoveries that truly alter our thinking about the past are few and far between. All the more reason to celebrate, therefore, when the genuine article comes along: Simon Kitson’s brief study of a neglected area of the politics of Vichy France is just such a work…..Simon Kitson’s book is a significant and admirable achievement” 
(Nigel Jones, Literary Review, February 2008, p 7)

“This short, telling book (…) takes a fresh look at Pétain’s French state, which tried to govern defeated France from Vichy from 1940 to 1944; the unfamiliar angle of sight reveals several surprises. Those of us who do not live under authoritarian regimes are always curious about what life in them is like; here is fresh fuel for our curiosity, neatly set out by an expert”
(M.R.D. Foot, The Spectator, 16 January 2008) http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/books/451401/jealous-neighbourhood-watch.thtml

“Previous historians of Vichy espionage have had to rely largely on the (often-self serving) memoirs of French secret agents. Kitson is the first person to have tested these accounts against the historical record deriving from the rich body of archives recently repatriated to France from the former Soviet Union. The result of that important original research, The Hunt for Nazi Spies is a distinguished and skillfully written work."
(Professor Julian Jackson, author of France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944)

“At first it seems hardly credible: Marshal Pétain’s collaborationist Vichy government arrested some 2000 spies working for the Germans, and even executed several dozen of them by firing squad. Earlier authors had noted a few such cases, but Simon Kitson has drawn from intensive study of French archives the first full picture of Vichy’s counter-intelligence activities. Even better, Kitson shows how the arrest and punishment of foreign agents – directed also against the Allies and the Gaullists – was not incompatible with Vichy’s efforts to become an independent partner in Hitler’s Europe. We can now see more clearly how Vichy France tried (ultimately unsuccessfully) to collaborate with Nazi Germany as a sovereign and neutral state, master of its own territory and administration."
(Professor Robert O. Paxton, author of Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order)

Reviews of Vichy et la chasse aux espions nazis

• “A triumph of scholarship, insight and compulsive storytelling”
  (Rod Kedward in the Times Literary Supplement)
• “There is little to criticise here, and the book has deservedly received almost unanimous praise in both Europe and North America…. All historians of wartime France owe Kitson a debt of intellectual gratitude, for he has made a substantial contribution to the ongoing revolution of Vichy historiography”
  (Brett Bowles on the Institute of Historical Research website http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/bowles.html)
• “Simon Kitson adds considerably to our understanding of the nuances of the Vichy regime”
  (Nicholas Atkin in The International History Review)
• “This stimulating study is based on a very good use of new sources”
  (Robert Mencherini in Vingtième Siècle)
• "Libro eccellente”.
  (Stefania Elena Carnemolla in Millenovecento - Mensile di Storia Contemporanea)
• “An extended example of the kind of detailed research that must underpin any reinterpretation of the années noires”
  (Richard Parish, Times Higher Education Supplement)
• “All our reviewers concur that the book breaks new ground, as much in its subtle analysis of where Vichy’s intelligence service fits into continuing debates about collaboration and resistance as in its wealth of new archival findings. It is an opinion shared by our colleagues in France”
  (Martin Thomas introducing H-Diplo roundtable on the book http://www.h-net.org/~diplo/roundtables/PDF/Thomas-KitsonRoundtable.pdf)
• “I finished this concise and judicious work with admiration for the author’s achievements, for he has demonstrated how the study of intelligence operations raises broader questions about the character of the Vichy regime and life in France during the war years”
  (Sean Kennedy in H-Diplo roundtable on the book http://www.h-net.org/~diplo/roundtables/PDF/Kennedy-KitsonRoundtable.pdf)
• “Kitson’s contribution is less another piece of revisionism than a welcome addition to our understanding of the Vichy years”
  (Kim Munholland in H-Diplo roundtable on the book http://www.h-net.org/~diplo/roundtables/PDF/Munholland-KitsonRoundtable.pdf)

• “Kitson’s superb book will no doubt stimulate further scholarly inquiry in an area that has been too long neglected by French academics”
  (Peter Jackson in H-Diplo roundtable on the book http://www.h-net.org/~diplo/roundtables/PDF/Jackson-KitsonRoundtable.pdf)
• “Kitson displays an admirable sensitivity in exploring the tension between Vichyite collaboration and the exercise of autonomy, thus demonstrating the limits of each of these trends. In so doing, he not only tells us an unknown story, but develops a theme that cuts across the grain of the current historiography, in the process enriching it”
  (Perry Biddiscombe on H-France http://h-france.net/vol5reviews/biddiscombe.html)
• “Kitson's approach is bold and fresh and takes a fascinating look at an old story [Vichy] from an interesting perspective”
  (Michael Ankin on H-German http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=311861145896462)
• “Voilà un livre surprenant qui éclaire d'un jour nouveau la politique de collaboration de Vichy, et permet de mieux en approfondir la sombre complexité”
  (Jacques de Saint-Victor in Le Figaro Littéraire http://www.lefigaro.fr/litteraire/20050113.LIT0032.html)
• “The scrupulous work of the British researcher Simon Kitson adds an original new angle to an abundant historiography”
  (Laurent Lemire in Le Nouvel Observateur)
• “Un excellent livre”
  (Anon., Marianne http://www.marianne-en-ligne.fr/selection/virtual/patrickgirardalu/e-docs/00/00/2D/A8/document_selection.md?type=text.html)
• “In addition to an exciting analysis of the networks, the personnel and the methods [of counter-espionage], Simon Kitson adds a new approach on the contradictions of Vichy”.
  (Anon., Livres Hebdos)
• “Simon Kitson uncovers an unknown aspect of Vichy”
  (Anon., L’Histoire)
•  “A surprising book which throws new light on the Vichy regime and on Collaboration”
  (Anon., Notre Histoire) 
• “Un livre très intéressant”
  (Anon., Le Patriote Résistant)
•  “Escaping from the polemics, this rigorous book is interesting because of its scrupulous analysis of the available archives”
  (Anon., Notes bibliographiques)
•  “En deux centaines de pages limpides, selon la tradition britannique, Kitson apporte une contribution importante à la compréhension du régime de Vichy et de ses illusoires rodomontades”
  (Le Temps, http://www.letemps.ch/disques/critique.asp?Genre=2&Objet=3393)
• “Die wissenschaftliche Erforschung des Vichy-Regimes, die 1972 mit der bahnbrechenden Studie des amerikanischen Historikers Robert Paxton einsetzte, hat in der französischen Zeitgeschichtsforschung noch immer Hochkonjunktur. Dass tatsächlich über die “années noires” noch nicht alles gesagt ist, belegt jetzt auch die Studie des englischen Historikers Simon Kitson, in den Jahren 2000/01 Gastforscher am renommierten Institut d’histoire du temps présent. Er beleuchtet ein bislang wenig bekanntes Kapitel aus der Geschichte des Vichy-Regimes: die “Jagd auf Nazi-Spione”.
  (Claudia Moisel, H-Soz-u-Kult, 02.12.2005,  http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensionen/2005-4-137).