Best of
France

1984

The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers - Revised Edition


T.J. Clark - 1984
    J. Clark describes the painting of Manet, Degas, Seurat, and others as an attempt to give form to that modernity and seek out its typical representatives—be they bar-maids, boaters, prostitutes, sightseers, or petits bourgeois lunching on the grass. The central question of The Painting of Modern Life is this: did modern painting as it came into being celebrate the consumer-oriented culture of the Paris of Napoleon III, or open it to critical scrutiny? The revised edition of this classic book includes a new preface by the author.

The Food Lover's Guide to Paris: The Best Restaurants, Bistros, Cafés, Markets, Bakeries, and More


Patricia Wells - 1984
    An acclaimed authority on French cuisine, Ms. Wells has spent more than 30 years in Paris, many as former restaurant critic for The International Herald Tribune. Now her revered Food Lover s Guide to Paris is back in a completely revised, brand-new edition. In 457 entries 345 new to this edition, plus 112 revisited and reviewed classics The Food Lover s Guide to Paris offers an elegantly written go-to guide to the very best restaurants, cafes, wine bars, and bistros in Paris, as well as where to find the flakiest croissants, earthiest charcuteries, sublimest cheese, most ethereal macarons, and impeccable outdoor markets. The genius of the book is Ms. Wells s meritocratic spirit. Whether you re looking for a before-you-die Michelin three-star experience (Guy Savoy, perhaps, or Restaurant Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athenee) or wanting to sample the new bistronomy (Bistrot Paul Bert, Le Comptoir du Relais) or craving something simple and perfect (L As du Fallafel, or Breizh Cafe for crepes), Patricia Wells tells you exactly where to go and why you should go there. You no longer have to rely on the iffy reviews of Yelp or Trip Advisor. Included are 40 recipes from some of her favorite chefs and purveyors and, of course, all the practical information: addresses, websites, email, hours, closest metro stop, specialties, and more.

Outwitting the Gestapo


Lucie Aubrac - 1984
    The couple, living in the Vichy zone, soon joined the Resistance Movement in opposition to the Nazis and their collaborators. Outwitting the Gestapo is Lucie's harrowing account of her participation in the Resistance: of the months when, though pregnant, she planned and took part in raids to free comrades—including her husband, under Nazi death sentence—from the prisons of Klaus Barbie, the infamous Butcher of Lyon. Her book is also the basis for the 1997 French movie, Lucie Aubrac, which was released in the United States in 1999.

The Pasteurization of France


Bruno Latour - 1984
    It is the operation of these forces, in combination with the talent of Pasteur, that Bruno Latour sets before us as a prime example of science in action.Latour argues that the triumph of the biologist and his methodology must be understood within the particular historical convergence of competing social forces and conflicting interests. Yet Pasteur was not the only scientist working on the relationships of microbes and disease. How was he able to galvanize the other forces to support his own research? Latour shows Pasteur’s efforts to win over the French public—the farmers, industrialists, politicians, and much of the scientific establishment.Instead of reducing science to a given social environment, Latour tries to show the simultaneous building of a society and its scientific facts. The first section of the book, which retells the story of Pasteur, is a vivid description of an approach to science whose theoretical implications go far beyond a particular case study. In the second part of the book, “Irreductions,” Latour sets out his notion of the dynamics of conflict and interaction, of the “relation of forces.” Latour’s method of analysis cuts across and through the boundaries of the established disciplines of sociology, history, and the philosophy of science, to reveal how it is possible not to make the distinction between reason and force. Instead of leading to sociological reductionism, this method leads to an unexpected irreductionism.

A Woman's Life in the Court of the Sun King: Letters of Liselotte von der Pfalz, Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orléans, 1652 - 1722


Elisabeth Charlotte von der Pfalz - 1984
    The marriage was not to be a happy one. Liselotte (known in France as Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orlans, or "Madame") was full of intellectual energy and moral rigor. Homesick for her native Germany, she felt temperamentally ill-suited to life at the French court. The homosexual Monsieur, deeply immersed in the pleasures and intrigues of the court, shared few of his wife's interests. Yet, for the next fifty years, Liselotte remained in France, never far from the center of one of the most glorious courts of Europe. And throughout this period, she wrote letters - sometimes as many as forty week - to her friends and relatives in Germany. It is from this extraordinary body of correspondence that A Woman's Life in the Court of the Sun King has been fashioned.As introduced and translated by Elborg Forster, the letters have become the remarkable personal narrative of Liselotte's transformation from an innocent, yet outspoken, girl into a formidable observer of great events and human folly.

Louis XV


Olivier Bernier - 1984
    He had extraordinary good looks, absolute power, spectacular palaces, and the total grandeur that only eighteenth-century France could provide. The French people adored him and called him "the beloved." During his reign, France flourished, and had it not been for his successor, the chaos of the Revolution might never have happened. History, however, has not only been unkind in its assessment of Louis XV but also mistaken, as this absorbing biography demonstrates. In it, Olivier Bernier explains the development of the negative judgment, showing how the beloved Louis became maligned after his death. The author refutes the unfavorable assessment using such credible sources as the king's state papers, which remain intact in France's national archives. Louis XV emerges in these pages as one of the best French kings, thoughtful and caring, loving and loved by his people.

Cézanne


Ambroise Vollard - 1984
    Includes 20 painstakingly reproduced paintings; excerpts from the critics.

Above Paris


Robert W. Cameron - 1984
    Pierre Salinger writes, "Paris, in its entirety, has never been portrayed like this. The view of the Ile de la Cite with the imposing Notre Dame; the Eiffel Tower, seen from above the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Elysees all give an entirely new deminsion to France's capital." His word picture of the world's romantic center matches Robert Cameron's stunning photography.

Merde!: The Real French You Were Never Taught at School


Geneviève - 1984
    This real-life resource is for anyone who remembers thumbing through English/French dictionaries for such words as "toilet paper" and "damn," as well as for the far more interesting, titillating terms that would never be used in polite conversation. But real French isn't spoken with the intent of being polite... With epithets for every occasion, a range of colorful idioms, and a wealth of come-ons and put-downs, this is the only language book you'll need to prepare for a trip to the city of lights.

Products of the Perfected Civilization: Selected Writings


Nicolas Chamfort - 1984
    Merwin precedes Chamfort's selected writings, along with an introduction by essayist-critic Louis Kronenberger. A poet and translator, Merwin sheds light on the man while Chamfort (1740-1794) is shedding light on his world.

Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past, Volume 1 - Conflicts and Divisions


Pierre Nora - 1984
    "Symbols," the third and final volume, is the culmination of the work begun in "Conflicts and Divisions "and "Traditions."Pierre Nora inaugurates this final volume by acknowledging that the whole project of Realms of Memory is oriented around symbols, claiming "only a symbolic history can restore to France the unity and dynamism not recognized by either the man in the street or the academic historian." He goes on to distinguish between two very different types of symbols - imposed and constructed. Imposed symbols may be official state emblems like the tricolor flag or 'La Marsaillaise', or may be monuments like the Eiffel Tower - symbols imbued with a sense of history. COnstructes symbols are produced over the passage of time, by human effort, and by history itself.They include figures such as Joan d'Arc, Descartes, and the Gallic cock.Past I, Emblems, traces the development of four major national symbols from the time of the Revolution: the tricolor flag, the national anthem (La Marsaillaise), the motto Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" and Bastille Day. Far from having fixed identities, these representations of the French nations are shown to have undergone transformations. As French republics rose and regimes changed, the emblems of the French state - and the meanings accosiated with them - were also altered.Part II, Major Sites, focuses on those cities and structures that act as beacons of France to both Frenchman and foreigner. These essays range from the prehistory paintings in Lascaux - that cave which, though not originally French in any sense, has become the very symbol of France's immemorial national memory - to Verdun, the site of the terrible World War I battle, now a symbol of the nation's heaviest sacrifice for the "salvation of the fatehrland" and the most powerful image of French national unity.Identifications, the final section, explores the ways in which the French think of themselves. From the cock - that "rustic and quintessentially Gallic bird" - to the figures of Joan of Arc and Descartes, to the nation's twin hearts - Paris and the French language - the memory of the French people is explored.This final installment of Realms of Memory provides a major contribution not only to study the French nation and culture, but also to the study of symbols as cultural phenomena, offering, as Nora observes, "the possibility of revelation."

The Lacemaker


Janine Montupet - 1984
    Giloune grows up seeing the problems the trade has caused her family, yet perseveres to become a highly skilled lacemaker. The author's previous books have been bestsellers in France.

The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural History


Robert Darnton - 1984
    When the apprentices of a Paris printing shop in the 1730's held a series of mock trials and then hanged all the cats they could lay their hands on, why did they find it so hilariously funny that they choked with laughter when they reenacted it in pantomime some twenty times? Why in the 18th century version of "Little Red Riding Hood" did the wolf eat the child at the end? What did the anonymous townsman of Montpelier have in mind when he kept an exhaustive dossier on all the activities of his native city? These are some of the provocative questions Robert Darnton attempts to answer in this dazzling series of essays that probe the ways of thought in what we like to call "The Age of Enlightenment."

Debussy -- Children's Corner: For the Piano


Claude Debussy - 1984
    Debussy's intention was to create moods and sensations and, utilizing his typical harmonic richness, he succeeds in an appealing and joyous fashion. This edition is based on not only the original autograph manuscripts but also on Debussy's sound recording of these pieces.

Winter of the Heart


Linda J. LaRosa - 1984
    It began as a magical love story of champagne and candlelight, of passion and romance in a marble palace. But when the aristocratic Julienne married Franz, she had no foreboding of his legacy, the dark secret violence hidden in his ancestral halls. With a treasure of jewels stitched to her petticoat and her children by her side, she dared to flee her husband's shameful abuse -- and leave the glittering privileges of wealth and position forever. From Vienna to Paris, as the flames of war swept across Europe, through the horrors of plague and privation, she fought for her children and a fragile new love -- one that would have to face the tortured past if it were to survive the Winter of the Heart.

Masters of Art: Corot


Madeleine Hours - 1984
    Madeleine Hours, as Conservateur en Chef at the Louvre, in Paris, where many of Corot's works are on view, brings to her subject exceptional knowledge and insight.

The Rise and Fall of Structural Marxism: Althusser and His Influence


Ted Benton - 1984
    

Fleur De Lis


Dorothy Taylor - 1984
    Her beloved France had been seized by Revolution, and she, with no memory left of her past, was being taken to America, captive of the ship's captain!Liselle Brognier was told she owed her life to Captain Trenton Sinclair, but his outrageous claim that she was his wife bewildered her. Her only thought was escape.Yet even before the ship arrived in South Carolina, Liselle’s anxiety over her identity had given way to dreams of Trenton Sinclair. For in the arms of her handsome, sun-bronzed captain she trembled not with fear, but with desire. And in the enchanted loveliness of his southern plantation, she abandoned herself to the fervor of his kisses, and to the exquisite fantasies that could only be answered in the timeless passion of their love.

French Feminism In The Nineteenth Century


Claire Goldberg Moses - 1984
    Now, French Feminism in the Nineteenth Century completes the history books by restoring this missing--and vital--chapter of French history.The book recounts the turbulent story of nineteenth-century French feminism, placing it in the context of the general political events that influenced its development. It also examines feminist thought and activities, using the very words of the women themselves--in books, newspapers, pamphlets, memoirs, diaries, speeches, and letters. Featured is a wealth of previously unpublished personal letters written by Saint-Simonian women. These engrossing documents reveal the nuances of changing consciousness and show how it led to an autonomous women's movement.Also explored are the relationships between feminist ideology and women's actual status--legal, social, and economic--during the century. Both bourgeois and working-class women are surveyed.Beginning with a general survey of feminism in France, the book provides historical context and clarifies the later vicissitudes of the "condition feminine."

Paris Fashions of the 1890s: A Picture Sourcebook with 350 Designs, Including 24 in Full Color


Stella Blum - 1984
    Introduction and captions.

By Influence and Desire: The True Story of Three Extraordinary Women--The Grand Duchess of Courtland and Her Daughters


Rosalynd C. Pflaum - 1984
    

High Gothic: The Classic Cathedrals of Chartres, Reims, Amiens


Hans Jantzen - 1984
    Through a comparative analysis of the cathedrals of Chartres, Reims, and Amiens, the author illuminates the technical, theological, artistic, and social factors that formed the High Gothic synthesis. Drawing on a lifetime of scholarship, he successively characterizes the different parts of the Gothic cathedral and describes the human context of the three great buildings.