I am in the middle of reading Geoffrey Wheatcroft's excellent new history of the Tdf called Le Tour. Written in honor of the centennial, it was just published in the UK this July. Wheatcroft has done tremendous research and covers the history of the Tour year by year. He is a well-known English historian and brings a learned and thoughtful background to the story. Unfortunately there are only a small group of photos. The book does not appear to be available yet in the US but I saw that you could purchase it on Amazon UK.
David Cooper
Chicago, IL