Georges Marchais's long tenure as the leader of the French Communist Party (PCF) witnessed a sharp decline in the party's electoral performance. Shortly after Marchais took over, the PCF received more than 20 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections. By the time he left office, the party's share of the vote had dropped to less than 10 percent. A new biography of Marchais, by Thomas Hofnung, provides a nuanced assessment of the French Communist leader, showing why Marchais's political instincts, which once proved so remarkably effective, began to fail him the longer he was in power. Marchais's decision to endorse the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979—1980 symbolized the decline of the PCF, but even then Marchais's colleagues were unwilling to remove him. He remained in office for another decade, as the fortunes of the party continued to ebb. Hofnung's perceptive book takes due account of Marchais's strengths but is especially illuminating in its portrayal of the French Communists in decline a decline that paralleled the waning of the Cold War.

The responses to Andrew Moravcsik's article discuss the main substantive and methodological points raised in it. Although most of the respondents agree that Moravcsik has properly highlighted the importance of commercial concerns for de Gaulle's policy on European integration, they question the validity of his sharp separation between de Gaulle's political and economic goals for France. Several commentators argue that political and commercial concerns (including agricultural concerns) were closely intertwined in de Gaulle's vision of French grandeur. John Keeler brings up another crucial question: Was French agriculture really an obstacle to France's position in Europe? He argues that de Gaulle successfully supported and modernized French agriculture because he was convinced that this would contribute to France's geopolitical position in Europe and the Western world. In two longer commentaries, Jeffrey Vanke and Marc Trachtenberg raise questions about Moravcsik's methodology and use of sources. Both agree that Moravcsik draws on an impressive array of available materials concerning de Gaulle. But they both wonder whether a definitive account of de Gaulle's policies can be written when the documentary record is still incomplete, a point raised by the