Exemplary historical biography. What a task to write an assessment of a politician with a 60-years lasting career of polemical writing, public office and big convictions. Michel Winock presents the four faces of Clemenceau (far-left "Tiger", tearing down centre-left governments, civil rights advocate in the Dreyfus affair, "premier flic de France" in repressing anarchist strikes as prime minister, "father of the nation" at the end of WWI). More than 500 pages take the reader away on sleepless nights with a vivid and never-abandoning political animal. Though Clemenceau seems to have had a changing career, he stuck to a firm rule of law-commitment to the lay state, the republic and individual liberty. According to Winock, it should restore his credits as a guide for political reorientation of the broader left. ( )