France and the Dreyfus Affair: A Documentary History (Bedford Series in History & Culture)


Michael Burns - 1998
    In the first book designed to introduce students to the broad outlines and significant legacies of the affair, the author deftly interweaves text with documents, tracing the course of events. He highlights the many issues connected with the case, including anti-Semitism, militant nationalism, socialism, the birth of modern Zionism, and the separation of church and state. Sixty-six documents are embedded in the narrative, offering students a broad range of sources to examine, including newspaper editorials, letters, trial testimony, and diary entries. A list of the principal characters is included in the appendices.

Paris, Capital of Modernity


David Harvey - 2003
    The book is heavily illustrated and includes a number drawings, portraits and cartoons by Daumier, one of the greatest political caricaturists of the nineteenth century.

Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Paris


Vanessa R. Schwartz - 1997
    The sparkling redesigned city fostered a culture of energetic crowd-pleasing and multi-sensory amusements that would apprehend and represent real life as spectacle.Vanessa R. Schwartz examines the explosive popularity of such phenomena as the boulevards, the mass press, public displays of corpses at the morgue, wax museums, panoramas, and early film. Drawing on a wide range of written and visual materials, including private and business archives, and working at the intersections of art history, literature, and cinema studies, Schwartz argues that "spectacular realities" are part of the foundation of modern mass society. She refutes the notion that modern life produced an unending parade of distractions leading to alienation, and instead suggests that crowds gathered not as dislocated spectators but as members of a new kind of crowd, one united in pleasure rather than protest.

The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century


Amia Srinivasan - 2021
    Yet consent is a blunt tool. To grasp sex in all its complexity—its deep ambivalences, its relationship to gender, class, race and power—we need to move beyond yes and no, wanted and unwanted.We do not know the future of sex—but perhaps we could imagine it. Amia Srinivasan’s stunning debut helps us do just that. She traces the meaning of sex in our world, animated by the hope of a different world. She reaches back into an older feminist tradition that was unafraid to think of sex as a political phenomenon. She discusses a range of fraught relationships—between discrimination and preference, pornography and freedom, rape and racial injustice, punishment and accountability, students and teachers, pleasure and power, capitalism and liberation.The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century is a provocation and a promise, transforming many of our most urgent political debates and asking what it might mean to be free.

The French Revolution A Short History


Robert Matteson Johnston - 1909
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Riding in the Zone Rouge: The Tour of the Battlefields 1919 – Cycling's Toughest-Ever Stage Race


Tom Isitt - 2019
    It covered 2,000 kilometres and was raced in appalling conditions across the battlefields of the Western Front, otherwise known as the Zone Rouge. The race was so tough that only 21 riders finished, and it was never staged again.With one of the most demanding routes ever to feature in a bicycle race, and plagued by appalling weather conditions, the Circuit des Champs de Bataille was beyond gruelling, but today its extraordinary story is largely forgotten. Many of the riders came to the event straight from the army and had to ride 18-hour stages through sleet and snow across the battlefields on which they had fought, and lost friends and family, only a few months before. But in addition to the hellish conditions there were moments of high comedy, even farce.The rediscovered story of the Circuit des Champs de Bataille is an epic tale of human endurance, suffering and triumph over extreme adversity.

Marie-Thérèse, Child of Terror: The Fate of Marie Antoinette's Daughter


Susan Nagel - 2006
    Nagel brings the formidable Marie-Thérèse to life, along with the age of revolution and the waning days of the aristocracy, in a page-turning biography that will appeal to fans of Antonia Fraser's Marie Antoinette and Amanda Foreman's Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire.In December 1795, at midnight on her seventeenth birthday, Marie-Thérèse, the only surviving child of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, escaped from Paris's notorious Temple Prison. To this day many believe that the real Marie-Thérèse, traumatized following her family's brutal execution during the Reign of Terror, switched identities with an illegitimate half sister who was often mistaken for her twin. Was the real Marie-Thérèse spirited away to a remote castle to live her life as the woman called "the Dark Countess," while an imposter played her role on the political stage of Europe? Now, two hundred years later, using handwriting samples, DNA testing, and an undiscovered cache of Bourbon family letters, Nagel finally solves this mystery. She tells the remarkable story in full and draws a vivid portrait of an astonishing woman who both defined and shaped an era. Marie-Thérèse's deliberate choice of husbands determined the map of nineteenth-century Europe. Even Napoleon was in awe and called her "the only man in the family." Nagel's gripping narrative captures the events of her fascinating life from her very public birth in front of the rowdy crowds and her precocious childhood to her hideous time in prison and her later reincarnation in the public eye as a saint, and, above all, her fierce loyalty to France throughout.

A Passion for Paris: Romanticism and Romance in the City of Light


David Downie - 2015
    The art and architecture, the cityscape, riverbanks, and the unparalleled quality of daily life are part of the equation.But the city’s allure derives equally from hidden sources: querulous inhabitants, a bizarre culture of heroic negativity, and a rich historical past supplying enigmas, pleasures and challenges. Rarely do visitors suspect the glamor and chic and the carefree atmosphere of the City of Light grew from and still feed off the dark fountainheads of riot, rebellion, mayhem and melancholy—and the subversive literature, art and music of the Romantic Age.Weaving together his own with the lives and loves of Victor Hugo, Georges Sand, Charles Baudelaire, Balzac, Nadar and other great Romantics Downie delights in the city’s secular romantic pilgrimage sites asking , Why Paris, not Venice or Rome—the tap root of "romance"—or Berlin, Vienna and London—where the earliest Romantics built castles-in-the-air and sang odes to nightingales? Read A Passion for Paris: Romanticism and Romance in the City of Light and find out.

Camino de Santiago - Practical Preparation and Background (CaminoGuide.net eBooks)


Gerald Kelly - 2011
     On the Camino: advice and information about what to expect on the Camino. Terrain, waymarkings, accommodation, food and drink, money matters, keeping in touch (telephone, internet, etc.), health – with advice on staying healthy and accessing the Spanish health service, Camino administration, etiquette and safety – staying safe and planning for any eventuality. The Caminos: information about the other Caminos, a list of books about the Caminos and pilgrim statistics, with the most popular starting points, nationalities, routes and busiest months. History: the History section aims to give you an understanding of the historical background to the Camino and the role it played in the foundation of modern Spain and Europe. It contains a history of Spain, and a history of the Camino from its beginnings to its revival, in the late 20th century. There’s also an account of life on the Camino in the middle-ages, the people who walked then, and the hardships and hazards they faced. Society, Culture & Environment: a brief outline of the fascinating mosaic that is modern Spain, its politics, cultures and peoples. The natural environment of northern Spain and the impact of the Camino on it. A description of the architectural styles and periods you’ll see along the Camino. Communicating: advice on making yourself understood and understanding others, with a Menu Guide and the most useful Spanish words and phrases for Camino life, plus a few phrases in Basque and Galician. Glossary: a concise reference for many Camino-related persons and things. This new edition, published in September 2013, has been extensively changed, updated and expanded based on feedback and criticisms received from readers over the past two years, and the author's experiences of walking various Caminos during that time. Most of the changes and additions are in the areas: - Packing, what to bring: with the different packing options listed in detail, and the pros and cons of different items explained. - A typical Camino day is described, from waking at the crack of dawn, to bedding down at nightfall. - There's detailed information about how Pilgrim Hostels work, and what it's like to stay in one. - Health: blisters, bedbugs, heatstroke, and other Camino hazards, are described with advice on avoiding them and dealing with them. Thanks to everybody for their feedback and their help with this new edition. ¡Buen Camino!

The Air Loom Gang: The Strange and True Story of James Tilly Matthews and His Visionary Madness


Mike Jay - 2003
    Europe is in turmoil, and mysterious forces seem to be edging England into a disastrous war with France. Not quite at the center of the political maelstrom is James Tilly Matthews, a Welsh tea merchant and antiwar advocate who holds covert meetings with the leaders of both countries. But Matthews also believes his mind is being controlled by a gang of revolutionary "terrorists" and their diabolical secret machine called the Air Loom. The only man aware of the Air Loom's existence, Matthews is promptly declared mad and exiled to Bedlam, where he is held against his will for the rest of his life — by order of England's home secretary, Lord Liverpool. At Bedlam his "delusions" are celebrated as the most complex and bizarre ever recorded, but the truth of his case is even stranger than his doctors realize: many of the incredible political episodes in which he claims to have been involved are entirely real.

A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II


Sonia Purnell - 2019
    We must find and destroy her."This spy was Virginia Hall, a young American woman--rejected from the foreign service because of her gender and her prosthetic leg--who talked her way into the spy organization deemed Churchill's "ministry of ungentlemanly warfare," and, before the United States had even entered the war, became the first woman to deploy to occupied France.Virginia Hall was one of the greatest spies in American history, yet her story remains untold. Just as she did in Clementine, Sonia Purnell uncovers the captivating story of a powerful, influential, yet shockingly overlooked heroine of the Second World War. At a time when sending female secret agents into enemy territory was still strictly forbidden, Virginia Hall came to be known as the "Madonna of the Resistance," coordinating a network of spies to blow up bridges, report on German troop movements, arrange equipment drops for Resistance agents, and recruit and train guerilla fighters. Even as her face covered WANTED posters throughout Europe, Virginia refused order after order to evacuate. She finally escaped with her life in a grueling hike over the Pyrenees into Spain, her cover blown, and her associates all imprisoned or executed. But, adamant that she had "more lives to save," she dove back in as soon as she could, organizing forces to sabotage enemy lines and back up Allied forces landing on Normandy beaches. Told with Purnell's signature insight and novelistic flare, A Woman of No Importance is the breathtaking story of how one woman's fierce persistence helped win the war.

The French Revolution: From Enlightenment to Tyranny


Ian Davidson - 2016
    Yet it remains an elusive, perplexing historical event. Its significance morphs according to the sympathies of the viewer, who may see it as a series of gory tableaux, a regrettable slide into uncontrolled anarchy—or a radical reshaping of the political landscape.In this riveting new book, Ian Davidson provides a fresh look at this vital moment in European history. He reveals how it was an immensely complicated and multifaceted revolution, taking place in different places, at different times, and in different spheres; and how subsequently it became weighted with political, social, and moral values. Stirring and dramatic—and filled with the larger-than-life players of the period and evoking the turbulence of this colorful time—this is narrative history at its finest.

Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization


Stuart Isacoff - 2001
    Indeed, from the time of the Ancient Greeks through the eras of Renaissance scientists and Enlightenment philosophers, the relationship between the notes of the musical scale was seen as a key to the very nature of the universe.In this engaging and accessible account, Stuart Isacoff leads us through the battles over that scale, placing them in the context of quarrels in the worlds of art, philosophy, religion, politics and science. The contentious adoption of the modern tuning system known as equal temperament called into question beliefs that had lasted nearly two millenia–and also made possible the music of Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Debussy, and all who followed. Filled with original insights, fascinating anecdotes, and portraits of some of the greatest geniuses of all time, Temperament is that rare book that will delight the novice and expert alike.

The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution


Zeev Sternhell - 1989
    In Sternhell's view, fascism was much more than an episode in the history of Italy. He argues here that it possessed a coherent ideology with deep roots in European civilization. Long before fascism became a political force, he maintains, it was a major cultural phenomenon.

The Anglo Saxons at War 800-1066


Paul Hill - 2012
    His broad, detailed and graphic account of the conduct of war in the Anglo-Saxon world in the unstable, violent centuries before the Norman Conquest will be illuminating reading for anyone who wants to learn about this key stage of medieval history.The role of violence and war in Anglo-Saxon society is explored, in particular the parts played by the king and the noblemen, and the means by which, in times of danger, the men of the fyrd were summoned to fight. The controversial subject of the Anglo-Saxon use of cavalry is also explored. Land and naval warfare are central sections of Paul Hill’s book, but he also covers the politics and diplomacy of warfare – the conduct of negotiations, the taking of hostages and the use of treachery.The weapons and armor of the Anglo-Saxons are described – the spears, the scramsaxes, axes, bows, swords, helmets, shields and mail that were employed in the close-quarter fighting of the day. Among the most valuable sections of the study are those dealing, in vivid detail, with actual experience of battle and siege – with the brutal reality of combat as it is revealed by campaigns against the Danes, in the battles of Ashdown, Maldon and Stamford Bridge, and sieges at Reading and Rochester.