Product Description
This is a unique content-based book covering French culture through the highly motivational material of French cuisine. Organized like a French menu, each chapter includes prose essays, poetry, grammar points, a degustation exercise and a recipe for students who might want to try their hand at food preparation. Not simply a culinary book, A Table! integrates a wide variety of cultural issues into this intriguing text . It requires no special knowledge of cuisine, of course, outside what each chapter makes easily available.The book provides some structure for the instructor to use Peter Mayle s (A Year in Provence) Adventure dans la France Gourmande. Discussion questions for his book are included in the Appendix. ... Read more

Product Description
Radio provided a new and powerful medium in1930s France. Devoted audiences related to and responded avidly to their stations' programming and relied on radio as a source of daily entertainment, news, and other information. Within the comfortable, secure space of the home, audio culture reigned supreme. In Programming National Identity, Joelle Neulander examines the rise of radio as a principal form of mass culture in interwar France, exploring the intricate relationship between radio, gender, and consumer culture. She shows that, while entertaining in nature and narrative in structure, French radio programming was grounded in a politically and socially conservative ideal.

In the early years of radio, France was the only Western nation--apart from Australia--to have both private and public radio stations. Commercial station owners created audiences and markets from a scattered group of radio enthusiasts, relying on traditional ideas about French identity, family, and community ties. Meanwhile, the government-run stations tried to hew an impossible compromise, balancing the nonpolitical entertainment that listeners desired with educational programs that supported state over private interests. As a public medium operating in a private space, radio could potentially cross normal gender and social boundaries. Programmers responded, Neulander shows, by restricting broadcast content, airing only programs deemed appropriate for a proper French home. Accordingly, radio culture espoused normative gender roles and traditional notions of the family.

Neulander analyzes radio program schedules and content, including plays and songs, and explains how programmers, governments, station owners, and average citizens fought over what was aired. On French radio, she shows, the best families had working fathers, homemaking mothers, and money in the bank. Indeed, for radio characters, bourgeois stability proved a prerequisite for happiness, and characters who did not fit the ideal often served as bad examples. Although the left-wing Popular Front controlled the French government during the late 1930s, both public and private radio portrayed the working class negatively--usually as buffoons or criminal characters. Indeed, Maurice Chevalier, better known today for his film career, first cultivated his working-class playboy image on 1930s radio and legendary radio artist Edith Piaf rose to fame singing tragic tales of prostitutes.

Neulander also examines French radio's ambivalent stance toward the colonial world featured in so many plays and songs. The colonies represented a perceived threat to the traditional French patriarchal family and home, so broadcasters stereotyped them as alien, often perilous spaces. Yet love songs by French-perceived exotic types like Tino Rossi proved wildly popular.The first work in English about interwar French radio, Programming National Identity reveals the persistence of conservative notions of family and nation that challenged the failing liberal democracy of the Popular Front at the end of the Third Republic. ... Read more

Product Description
In elegant and vivid prose, this deeply informed book offers a powerful synthesis of the ways men and women worked in early modern France. Distinguished historian James R. Farr shows how the shifting and often contradictory forces of a market economy shaped ideas about labor. Presenting a unified and compelling argument about the role of labor in society, Farr addresses a complex set of questions and succeeds masterfully at answering them. With its stylish writing and clear themes, this book will find a broad audience among students and scholars of early modern Europe, French history, economics, gender studies, anthropology, and labor studies. ... Read more

Product Description
In an extraordinary social history, Leora Auslander explores the changing meaning of furniture from the mid 17th to the early 20th century, revealing how the aesthetics of everyday life were as integral to political events as to economic and social transformations. The book is enriched by the author's experience as a cabinetmaker. 68 photos. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent and deep
Collectors of European furniture are advised to read this book to understand how French styles were produced over a long period of time and how to tell real 18th century Louis XVI from 19th century reproductions.The French social history of furniture manufacture and consumerism in this book is quite amazing and readable.I strongly advise the book for dealers, collectors, decorators and collectors. ... Read more

Product Description

This cultural history of civil warfare in early seventeenth-century France examines how warrior nobles' practices of violence shaped provincial society and the royal state.

Warrior Pursuits analyzes in detail how provincial nobles engaged in revolt and civil warfare in southern France between 1598 and 1635. The southern French provinces of Guyenne and Languedoc suffered almost continual religious strife and civil conflict in this period, providing an excellent case for investigating the dynamics of early modern civil violence. Brian Sandberg's extensive archival research on noble families in these provinces reveals that violence continued to be a way of life for many French nobles, challenging previous scholarship that depicts a progressive "civilizing" of noble culture. He argues that southern French nobles engaged in warrior pursuits -- social and cultural practices of violence designed to raise personal military forces and to wage civil warfare in order to advance various political and religious goals. Close relationships between the profession of arms, the bonds of nobility, and the culture of revolt allowed nobles to regard their violent performances as "heroic gestures" and "beautiful warrior acts." Warrior nobles represented the key organizers of civil warfare in the early seventeenth century, orchestrating all aspects of the conduct of civil warfare -- from recruitment to combat -- according to their own understandings of their warrior pursuits.

Building on the work of Arlette Jouanna and other historians of the nobility, Sandberg provides new perspectives on noble culture, state development, and civil warfare in early modern France. French historians and scholars of the Reformation and the European Wars of Religion will find Warrior Pursuits engaging and insightful.

Product Description
French business culture presents an intriguing picture to outsiders. Colin Gordon examines the key features of business practice, the business environment and business people.


Specific aspects of French business culture are considered in the context of governmental, economic and legal influences. The author then goes on to look at the financial world, labour markets, trade unions and business organizations, training, environmental concerns. Finally, entrepreneurs and business people form the subject of an interesting analysis of the human side of French business culture.
... Read more

Product Description
What did French intellectuals have to say about Gaullism, the Cold War, the women's movement, colonialism, and the events of May 1968? David Drake examines the political commitment of intellectuals in France from Sartre and Camus to Bernard-Henri Lèvy and Pierre Bourdieu. In this accessible study, he explores why there was a radical reassessment of the intellectual's role in the mid-1970s to the 1980s and how a new generation engaged with Islam, racism, the Balkans War, and the strikes of 1995. ... Read more

Product Description
This book has long established itself as the most authoritative guide to the modern history of French politics and society. This new edition broadens the book's scope and appeal by adding three new chapters on ideas, identities and culture, exploring the themes of "Frenchness," the distinctiveness of French political culture, the role of intellectuals and the avant-garde, and the creation of a mass culture. ... Read more

Product Description
My France focuses on some of the most intriguing aspects of French life: politics, myths, personalities, public problems, actions, and conflicts. The topics Weber treats range from sports to religion, and include comments on folklore, national socialism, antisemitism, and famous Frenchmen. ... Read more

Product Description

The Image and the Witness: Trauma, Memory and Visual Culture is a timely interdisciplinary collection of original essays concerning the ethical stakes of the image in our visually-saturated age. It explores the role of the material image in bearing witness to historical events and the visual representation of witnesses to collective trauma. In arguing for the agency of the image, this unique collection debates post-traumatic memory, documentary ethics, embodied vision, and the recycling of images. It discusses works by Chris Marker, Errol Morris, Derek Jarman, Doris Salcedo, Gerhard Richter, and Boris Mikhailov, along with images from popular culture, including websites and home movies.

Product Description
Why dissenters can be an organization's most valuable asset and how to transform dissent into innovation

Innovation is essential to competitive survival in today's global marketplace. But in the majority of traditional organizations, innovators are perceived as counter-productive dissenters, single-minded troublemakers who are difficult to manage and politically naive. Written by a leading international expert on change management, this groundbreaking book explores the vital link between the need for innovation in the e-business world and the new role of dissenters as agents for constructive change. With the help of numerous case examples and anecdotes, Frances Horibe helps managers appreciate the value that dissent can bring to an organization, and she provides proven strategies and hands-on advice on how to encourage innovation and manage creative dissent, while avoiding paralyzing conflicts. Readers learn about the new role of managers as political handlers who help develop and support new ideas and sell them to senior management, and much more. ... Read more

Product Description
At the age of eighteen Lucy Wadham ran away from English boys and into the arms of a Frenchman. Twenty-five years later, having married in a French Catholic Church, put her children through the French educational system and divorced in a French court of law, Wadham is perfectly placed to explore the differences between Britain and france. Using both her personal experiences and the lessons of French history and culture, she examines every aspect of French life - from sex and adultery to money, happiness, race and politics - in this funny and engrossing account of our most intriguing neighbour. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Secrets Revealed!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book.I have been to France many times and have experienced some of the rude behaviors described in the book;especially in Paris.This happens much less in areas such as Provence;Nice,Antibes,etc.
I feel this is a very honest appraisal of France by a person who loves France,and has chosen to live there,in spite of some of the rude behavior about which France is stereotyped.
The author explains many of the behaviors of the French which are a mystery to Americans[and others],such as adultery,pride and refusal to acknowledge their bad behavior toward the Jews during WW II and continuing anti-Semitism. It is also a humorous,very readable book.

You will understand your lack of success in France better.
This book was a surprising delight.The author has a wry self deprecating way with words that captivate you.If you have ever wondered about what, to us Anglo Saxon Protestant work ethic driven planet dwellers, is going on in the minds of the French (And so some extant French Canadians, this is the book that will give you a lot of answers.Any summary will not do justice to how she argues:

The French (Chattering classes ) love the idea, but not often the implementation

There is liberty - except if you transgress the unwritten codes:

* All French are created equal - except if you are an immigrant who is unfortunate enough to love in a ghetto
* We are all equal , but I will fight to the death my particular perks that I enjoy that you do not have.
* Working for the State is the highest form of service - but that means I am better than you and I can be rude
* Team play takes a distant second seat to me winning
* France remains a patriarchal society- feminism did not take root, men run the country and women wait for men to make their move.
* To be seen is to be better than to do.
* You can divorce, but why not have affairs- changing husbands is just moving t e furniture in ten years.
* All are allowed their secret garden and the press will not inquire into your private lives - at least not until Sarkozy made it a celebrity life.
* The press is free , but the government really interferes, and most French people do not read it anyway
* The Republic is not a democracy - it starts as a Socialist state and then pushes left
* Only the govt can get in debt - it is frowned upon with regular folks, just try to get a loan.
* All are equal but a sub current of racism means Sarkozy talks about his Hungarian fathers roots, but not his mothers Jewish roots.
* Parisian views are diametrically opposite to the views of the country people (whoeschew capitalism)
* Youhave Liberty but Muslim women can not wear the head covering etc, because displays of ethnic, religious difference are not allowed.You are all free to look the same - perfect French, perfect French people.

A good coast to coast airplane read- Very useful if you ever have to deal with The French. You will understand your lack of success better.

Now I understand them!
I have been living in France for 6 years and have frequently wondered about their behavior and their tendency to do things "en masse". They are a very particular race of people and Ms. Wadham does a great job of laying out the case for their complex and often irritating behaviors. She writes very well, the book is an easy and entertaining read- I found myself saying "Aha" and also laughing out loud at her characterizations. A must buy for anyone thinking of living here or any Francophile.

TO STAY OR NOT TO STAY
That was the question that faced Lucy Lemoine (nee Wadham unless that is just a nom de guerre) when she ended her 20-year marriage to a Frenchman. She had to decide whether it was nobler in the mind to suffer the talk and habits of outrageous Frenchmen or to pull up stumps and cross the sea to England, and maybe find that better. She had actually once gone along to apply for French citizenship, and had been so appalled by the rudeness of the civil servant she encountered that she changed her mind on the spot. However when it came to the later decision she elected to stay in France after all, although significantly not in Paris.

Myself, I have been to France ten or eleven times, including my honeymoon in Corsica, but reading this book makes me think I probably know the place better from television and maybe a few films than from my stays there. Nothing Lucy Wadham says about France or the French surprises me, and although my knowledge of it all seems somehow second-hand I think I can understand to a fair extent what she is talking about. She starts her narration where she ought to start it as a young woman, with the relations between the sexes, partly but not mainly her own experiences. I am not going to précis her findings: I shall say only that she has a very interesting slant not only on the work/life balance of the French but on the balance between their commitment to marriage, their adherence or otherwise to Catholic moral teaching, and their attitude to sexual relations generally. A lot of the interest of this part of the book may be unintentional, by giving us insights into her own mental and emotional processes. She is obviously very sharp and analytical, for instance, but if the word `love' occurs at all in this context I think I must have missed it.

One very interesting, and for me quite persuasive, insight is her opinion that the French are hidebound in their inherited traditions from 1789 and also in a self-deceiving mythology about themselves. This point the author illustrates from so many different angles that I can't help being drawn into her mindset. She sees herself as freethinking and independent-minded, and I would call that realistic on the evidence here and not a pose or auto-suggestion. Being of this way of thinking clearly creates communication barriers with the French, and Lucy Wadham does not quite convict the French national mindset of outright escapism, but she seems to me to come very near to it.

The book covers a wide spectrum of cultural and political issues, and with one exception I found myself keenly interested in Lucy Wadham's take on them. The exception occurs near the end, and that may have something to do with the matter, say a deadline to meet that did not help her concentration and focus. I really thought that the chatter about M Sarkozy as something called a `sexual dwarf' was a right load of rubbish, but perhaps I ought to reread the passage in due course. One way or another it is not significant enough to influence the rating I am prepared to give this thoroughly intelligent, fair-minded, readable and enjoyable volume. What really impresses me is that not only does the book address so many difficult and contentious topics with gusto and insight, it even provides, on page 64, nothing less than `the key to the French identity'. Short of identifying The Meaning of Life, I think this is as lofty and ambitious a generalisation as I have encountered in many years.

To me a theme of this kind, when attacked with so much mental grip and expressed with such lucidity, is far more interesting and involving than many a novel. I gather the author is a novelist, although this is the first time I have encountered her work. On this showing it will not be the last time. ... Read more

Product Description
The 'other' Renaissance experienced by France was that of war. In Italy from 1494 to 1529, for instance, France was involved in at least a hundred battles, some of them 'batttles of giants' like Marignano. After 1530, though the emphasis partly shifted away from Italy and major battles were replaced by complex sieges and wars of manoeuvre, the presence of war was universal. In the 'Habsburg Valois' wars that began in 1521, the country was subjected to major military incursions but continued to make notable attempts to occupy contiguous territory in the Pyrenees, the Alps and the north-east. Explaining such prodigious military efforts is the theme of this book. Why did the rulers of France attach so much importance to war and did the development of French armies in this period contribute to a significant modernisation of the country's military potential? The author attempts to answer these crucial questions, through an exploration of the strategy of the country's rulers in the light of contemporary writings, analysis of the nature of the country's high command, and a study of the major components of the king's armies. He argues that France was a society geared to war, persuaded by a sophisticated network of printed communications; the reception of the triumphalist view of war favoured by the rulers is discussed via an investigation of public opinion, as revealed in the literary, artistic and musical worlds. He also shows how the strengthening of the frontiers with new fortifications emerged as a major stage in the adaptation of France to age of artillery. ... Read more

Product Description

In September 1791, two years after the Revolution, French Jews were granted full rights of citizenship. Scholarship has traditionally focused on this turning point of emancipation while often overlooking much of what came before. In Rites and Passages, Jay R. Berkovitz argues that no serious treatment of Jewish emancipation can ignore the cultural history of the Jews during the ancien régime. It was during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that several lasting paradigms emerged within the Jewish community—including the distinction between rural and urban communities, the formation of a strong lay leadership, heightened divisions between popular and elite religion, and the strain between local and regional identities. Each of these developments reflected the growing tension between tradition and modernity before the tumultuous events of the French Revolution.

Rites and Passages emphasizes the resilience of religious tradition during periods of social and political turbulence. Viewing French Jewish history through the lens of ritual, Berkovitz describes the struggles of the French Jewish minority to maintain its cultural distinctiveness while also participating in the larger social and economic matrix. In the ancien régime, ritual systems were a formative element in the traditional worldview and served as a crucial repository of memories and values. After the Revolution, ritual signaled changes in the way Jews related to the state, French society, and French culture. In the cities especially, ritual assumed a performative function that dramatized the epoch-making changes of the day. The terms and concepts of the Jewish religious tradition thus remained central to the discourse of modernization and played a powerful role in helping French Jews interpret the diverse meanings and implications of emancipation.

Introducing new and previously unused primary sources, Rites and Passages offers a fresh perspective on the dynamic relationship between tradition and modernity.

Customer Reviews (1)

Outstanding work of scholarship; highly readable.
Professor Berkovitz's exploration of a crucial phase in Franco-Jewish history is not only an outstanding work of scholarship, but it is highly readable and pleasantly free of the jargon that mars many monographs. ... Read more

Product Description
In Reign of Virtue,Miranda Pollard explores the effects of military defeat and Nazi occupation on French articulations of gender in wartime France.

Drawing on governmental archives, historical texts, and propaganda, Pollard explores what most historians have ignored: the many ways in which Vichy's politicians used gendered images of work, family, and sexuality to restore and maintain political and social order. She argues that Vichy wanted to return France to an illustrious and largely mythical past of harmony, where citizens all knew their places and fulfilled their responsibilities, where order prevailed. The National Revolution, according to Pollard, replaced the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity with work, family, and fatherland, making the acceptance oftraditional masculine and feminine roles a key priority. Pollard shows how Vichy's policies promoted the family as the most important social unit of a new France and elevated married mothers to a new social status even as their educational, employment, and reproductive rights were strictly curtailed. ... Read more

Product Description
From 1770 to 1789 a succession of highly publicized cases riveted the attention of the French public. Maza argues that the reporting of these private scandals had a decisive effect on the way in which the French public came to understand public issues in the years before the Revolution. ... Read more