The Plateau

By Maggie Paxson

Winner of the American Library in Paris Book Award

Named a Best Book of 2019 by BookPage

During World War II, French villagers offered safe harbor to countless strangers--mostly children--as they fled for their lives. The same place offers refuge to migrants today. Why?

In a remote pocket of Nazi-held France, ordinary people risked their lives to rescue many hundreds of strangers, mostly Jewish children. Was this a fluke of history, or something more? Anthropologist Maggie Paxson, certainties shaken by years of studying strife, arrives on the Plateau to explore this phenomenon: What are the traits that make a group choose selflessness?

In this beautiful, wind-blown place, Paxson discovers a tradition of offering refuge that dates back centuries. But it is the story of a distant relative that provides the beacon for which she has been searching. Restless and idealistic, Daniel Trocm had found a life of meaning and purpose--or it found him--sheltering a group of children on the Plateau, until the Holocaust came for him, too. Paxson's journey into past and present turns up new answers, new questions, and a renewed faith in the possibilities for us all, in an age when global conflict has set millions adrift. Riveting, multilayered, and intensely personal, The Plateau is a deeply inspiring journey into the central conundrum of our time.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1594634750
• ISBN13: 9781594634758
• Release Date: August 2019
• Publisher: Riverhead Books
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.2"