From 1925 to 1978, Janet Flanner was the Paris correspondent for The New Yorkers, signing her letters Genet. In Men and Monuments, Flanner traces the course of four brilliant lives - those of the painters Picasso, Braque and Matisse, and the writer, politician and art critic Andre Malraux. Through anecdote, analysis, reportage, and opinion, Flanner presents a portrait of a time in Paris history - the late 1940s and 1950s - during which a nation recovered from a catastrophe, a new art was being forged and new ideas and values flourished. In addition, Flanner tells the inside story of one of the greatest art-pillaging campaign in history: Hitler's and Goering's ransack of the collections of the occupied countries during World War II.