Product Description
Revolutions and Reaction examines a number of critical issues during this tumultuous period of European history. Among the topics considered are the main features of the French Revolution of 1789, Napoleon's success in Europe until 1807, and the break out of revolution across central Europe in 1848.Revolutions and Reaction is part of the Cambridge Perspectives in History series. The book matches the requirements of the OCR examination specifications. It is suitable for all Advanced Subsidiary (AS) students, as well as students and undergraduates needing an introduction to the period. It also contains a document study section on the coming of the French Revolution. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

excellent overview
Be it fiction or non-fiction, one can hardly open a book without some reference to the French Revolution. Revolution and Reaction outlines the events and personalities of the period, placing important concepts, people, and movements in bold type, then defining these in the margin. Many questions are answered, such as whether Napoleon was a military genius, with illustrations of his tactics on the battlefield. I picked up my copy in a campus bookstore, where it was being sold for a history course. It only reinforces my opinion that professors choose the best material for their courses. Just the right amount of detail is included and the book as a whole can be easily read in a few hours. Questions are often placed in the margins, useful for students who want to remember what they are reading for testing.

After reading this book, you'll be ready to dive into heavier material with a solid foundation for understanding it. At the very least this book will make you better informed on an event that reverberates to this day. French citizens are out in force in the streets of Paris? After reading this book, you'll know it's a tradition! ... Read more

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The house of Valois ruled France for 250 years, playing a crucial role in its establishment as a major European power. When Philip VI came to the throne, in 1328, France was a weak country, with much of its modern area under English rule. Victory in the Hundred Years' War, and the acquisition of Brittany and much of Burgundy, combined with a large population and taxable wealth, made the France of Francis I the only power in Europe capable of rivalling the empire of Charles V. Francis displayed his power by spectacular artistic patronage and aggressive foreign wars. Following the death of Henry II in a tournament, the problems of two royal minorities and the divisive forces of the Reformation led to the temporary eclipse of royal power. When the last Valois, Henry III, was stabbed to death by a Dominican Friar in 1589, the dynasty was already discredited, but the monarchy survived intact. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

I am intrigued
It is a very large subject that seems to have been condensed very well.It made me get a good sense of who the Valois were and who were the key figures of France and Europe, but it left me wanting more or that there is more to each individuals story than what was included or room for.Will definitely be looking for more books about the valoise but with more focus on an individuals.

frustrating but not its fault
In this book, the author does exactly what he sets out to do.Unfortunately, he set out to write a short book about a very large topic - 250 years of French history.If you're looking for an overview, enjoy.If you are like me, and reading history raises questions as you go, don't expect them to be answered here. ... Read more

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In the late eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, revolutions transformed the British, French, and Spanish Atlantic worlds. During this time, colonial and indigenous people rioted and rebelled against their occupiers in violent pursuit of political liberty and economic opportunity, challenging time-honored social and political structures on both sides of the Atlantic. As a result, mainland America separated from British and Spanish rule, the French monarchy toppled, and the world's wealthiest colony was emancipated. In the new sovereign states, legal equality was introduced, republicanism embraced, and the people began to question the legitimacy of slavery.

Revolutions in the Atlantic World wields a comparative lens to reveal several central themes in the field of Atlantic history, from the concept of European empire and the murky position it occupied between Old and New World to slavery and diasporas. How was the stability of the old regimes undermined? Which mechanisms of successful popular mobilization can be observed? What roles did blacks and Indians play? Drawing on both primary documents and extant secondary literature to answer these questions, Wim Klooster portrays the revolutions as parallel and connected uprisings.

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent synthesis for students
Nothing much new for anyone beyond an undergraduate history education, but there's a lot of fun facts for veterans, plus infinitely pillagable for lectures in survey courses. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

Very unorthodox approach
There are two interesting things about this book:

(1) It tries to view the Dreyfus affair from the perspective of (a) the entire period of 1789 to 1945, and (b) the entire Dreyfus family (it even includes a family tree!).

(2) It is written like a novel, even though it is actually a history book. For example, beginning his discussion with Dreyfus's 18th century ancestors, Burns casually remarks on how one of these ancestors, being a butcher, must have had prodigious physical strength, and how (as per Jewish law and custom) he probably would sell the front half of the animal as kosher and sell the rear half to the gentiles due to the unkosher sinews (by contrast, Sephardi (Spanish and Middle Eastern) Jews tend to remove the individual sinews, a tedious process, and thereby render the rear half kosher). Burns also discusses the linguistic and cultural peculiarities of Ashkenazi (European) French Jewry in Alsance (of which Dreyfus's ancestors were a part), as contrasted with the French Sephardim (Spanish) in Bordeaux and Bayonnce, and how the French Enlightenment figures never doubted that the latter (being already acculturated to France) would be accorded emancipation, even as they were reluctant to emancipate the former (who were very insular).

The result is a history book that flows like a novel and includes a fascinating amount of both human character and element (as per (1) above), as well as side details of daily life and thought (as per (2) above).

Fascinating
A fascinating book. I read it for a college level 'discussion' class and this book sparked a lot of fun discussion. The France and Dreyfus Affair was a fascinating historical incident and this book is an excellent overview of it.

Very informative look at the Dreyfus Affairs
I read this book for a class on 19th century Europe.Burns has done a wonderful job of providing documentation showing both sides of the affair.I wish all historical events were analyzed and documented so completely.After reading this book I have a greater understanding of what led to the court martial of Alfred Dreyfus, the turmoil following his conviction, and the societal changes that continued to evolve through the first half of the 20th century.Great book! ... Read more

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Using 18th-century France as a case study, David Bell offers an alternative argument about the origins of nationalism. Before the 18th century, the very idea of nation building - a central component of nationalism - did not exist. During this period, leading French intellectual and political figures came to see perfect national unity as a critical priority, and so sought ways to endow all French people with the same language, laws, customs and values. The period thus gave rise to the first large-scale nationalist programme in history. The revolutionaries hoped that patriotism and national sentiment would replace religion as the new binding force in public life. Yet paradoxically, the example of cultural remodelling they followed in their nation-building quest was that of the Catholic Church, in its ambitious Counter-Reformation efforts to evangelize the French peasantry. In the new era, the population would be bound together not in a single Church, but in a single French nation.In this work, Bell offers a comprehensive survey of patriotism and national sentiment in early modern France, and shows how the dialectical relationship between nationalism and religion left a complex legacy that still resonates in debates over French national identity today. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A compelling argument that nationalism's origins pre-date the 19th Century
The Fall of Communism and the resultant unleashing of repressed nationalism spurred renewed interest in the origins and causes of nationalism. The sudden groundswell of nationalism was as though a manifestation of Albert Camus' quote that "It is a well-known fact that we always recognize our homeland when we are about to lose it." Many historians and sociologists date the origins of nationalism as an ideology, sentiment or social movement to the early years of the 19th Century, but this is a contentious subject, and one which Bells seeks to disprove by utilizing French history as his vehicle. Bell argues the roots of nationalism predate the 19th Century and he posits that the origins of French nationalism dated to the 18th Century era of the ancien regime and nascent efforts at forging French unity and a common national identity.

Bell's premise that the roots of French nationalism predated the French Revolution isn't as shocking as it appears as other historians focusing on France and other countries have advanced similar hypotheses.Bell's argument is bolstered by Lynn Hunt's book "Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution," which argues that the French revolutionaries sought to supplant the trappings and imagery reflecting the ancien regime's national identity with own imagery reflecting republican ideals and a refined sense of national identity.Hunt confirms Bell's argument that French national identity had sufficiently evolved to a point that it warranted a threat to the Revolution and had to be suppressed and eradicated.But Bell is also asking larger questions, such as why the need to create a national identity arose, just as much as he is asking when those efforts began.The close interconnection of king, country, and religion Bell describes was not unique to France, but occurred in Great Britain and elsewhere in Europe.The desire of the Catholic Church to counter the Reformation spurred the forging of this national identity, but it was tempered in the aftermath of the French Wars of Religion (1562-1598) as the centrality of religion began to wane.As this paradigm shift occurred it was only natural that the political leadership of France sought to consolidate and integrate the various holdings of the kingdom, in the process creating a French citizen out of the disparate ethnic and linguistic groups within its borders.Thus, the ancien regime created the blueprint in how to remake society in the desired image; something later revolutionaries were all too willing to seize upon.

In some respects "The Cult of the Nation" reads like a straightforward chronologically ordered political history, focusing on the political class's efforts at forging a national identity.Yet bell is not seeking to create a meta-narrative, but instead seeks to question what it is that makes a nation a nation.Bell isn't so much arguing the success or failure in creating a French national identity so much as outlining the means utilized in attempting it.As a result, Bell's focus on the process and the outcome rends "The Cult of the Nation" more of a traditional history, albeit one that challenges conventional wisdom on the origin of nationalism.His "great-man" approach and top-down view of political theory and history is distinctly retro, but when you are writing about the creation of national identity by the political apparatus it is hard to avoid this approach.Bell is also silent on the relative merits of the Enlightenment era which spurred the desire for creating a national identity, opting not to acknowledge or enter that debate.Bell however does make a compelling argument on pushing back the origins of nationalism that cannot be denied.

Getting In Deep
This work, by historian David Bell of Johns Jopkins University, provides a "deep" review of the nature and develpment of French patriotism and nationhood in this period.To put it simply, for Professor Bell there are no simple answers and oftimes one needs to hold onto multicausal explanations for understanding the events of this era.Of particular interest to me is how Bell uses the Jumonville encounter, which occurred in western Pennsylvania, to explain part of the French "gestalt." ... Read more

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This study of 16th- and 17th-century French art and architecture, presents major artists and their works chronologically. The author provides an overview of the main projects of the period and of the artistic personalities behind them, and sets the historical context. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

For your head, not your coffee table
The Pelican History of Art series is full of surprising gems and this book is no exception. It's value lies in the numerous photos and drawings which do not so much accompany the text as provide it with a ground substance on which the author hangs his words. Blunt, former Cold War spy though he might have been, writes with eloquence and verve directly to the artwork. Every picture seems carefully chosen to illustrate his points.Of course, in my older (1973) edition of this book, the pictures are in black and white so this isn't exactly a coffee table book but it's an excellent resource for learning about French painting, sculpture and architecture.

Considering that Blunt may have had some communist leanings, given his extracurricular activities, he certainly chose an interesting time period in which to specialize. The book covers the time frame from Charles VIII to Louis XIV, a time when the absolute monarchy in France was at its height.Aristocracy was failing while the merchant classes and the King divvied up the country. Blunt writes the book in eight chapters which roughly divide this time period into equal parts. Each chapter consists of a little historical and artistic context followed by sections on architecture, painting and sculpture. Being partial to architecture, I found those sections most entertaining, although I never could determine which of the two Mansarts (Francois or Hardouin) the Mansart Roof is named after. The various architectural developments of the Loire Chateaus including Blois, Chambord and Chenonceau, are particularly interesting, as Italian influence blends with French to yield a unique national style. The Palace at Versailles is well covered as is the Louvre and a multitude of other monumental buildings, while smaller, less well known but representative structures (Hotels in Paris, for example - not the kind with bell-boys but famous people's houses) are given significant coverage. Painting and sculpture is given equal footing with architecture although here the personalities and works are less well known. The movement from a gothic medieval style to classical renaissance styles in all the arts is well documented here.

The book, while written in an accessible fashion, is not for those completely new to the history of art and architecture. Some knowledge of basic architectural concepts (the classical orders - for example) is assumed and some knowledge of sculpture andpainting is likewise useful. It could easily be used as a text for a course but should be accessible to the educated layperson. It contains a useful map of France and extensive end notes, bibliography and index.

This book is fantastic in the well-thought-out interplay between images and text. It would be impossible to read the text in isolation from its illustrations and the illustrations would seem pointless without the text. Don't buy it for your coffee table, buy it for your mind.

Blunt on France
The one sad thing about the new Yale University Press/Pelican history of art editions is that the samll format has been eschewed in favor of a large size coffee table book. The text has changed little, if at all. What hasbeen updated is the bibliography, and many color illustrations have beenadded. However, even the illustrations have not changed in many instances,because Blunt, when he originally wrote the text in the 1950's worked with,wrote from, a very specific set of images, and these same images are stillessential if the reader wants to comprehend his argument. With that said,this is probably still the best general accounting of French art andarchitecture in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, certainly the best forthe beginner. Those looking for more detailed studies might turn to some ofBlunt's other books (he was the leading scholar of French Baroque for overfourty years) or more recent scholarly works. One bit of gossip that makesthe text more enjoyable is that Blunt was for many many years a Russianspy, involved with a circle of British men sending intelligence to theRussians, and when he was found out in the late 1970's he was stripped ofhis knighthood and of his post at London's restigious art historicalinstitution, the Courtauld. Whether or not his activites in that capacityinfluenced his interpreation or his writing of the text is for you to findout. ... Read more

Product Description
Everyone tries to pigeonhole France. The vast numbers who travel there or who discuss the French from across the Atlantic produce judgments that express everything from adulation to irritation. France and the French, it seems, remain resolutely mysterious and inexplicable. In this elegantly written and exhaustively researched narrative history, Rod Kedward brings to life the great, and often terrible, dramas of modern France--the two cataclysmic wars, the Algerian disaster, the student and worker revolt of 1968--but also explores the special worlds of the workplace, immigration, minorities, the role of women, and the relationship of politics to place, everyday life, and collective memory.Judgments will still be made and pigeonholes found, but the rich narratives of this book anchor French identities firmly in their own impassioned history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

too much information
I bought this because of a pair of good reviews, both quoted on the back of my copy, in the Economist and the Guardian. In particular, the Guardian review says "essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand why the survival of the French republic is more than one country's concern". I very specifically wished to understand why I should care about the French republic, but Kedward fails to make me. I assume that he is a Francophile - he has written a 650 page book about the place, and on the evidence of the last section (on the Mitterrand and Chirac era) he has been clipping French newspapers seriously for a large part of his professional life - but he does not manage to communicate much affection. In fact, on most of the post-war occasions here documented where France emerges to engage with the larger world, in what is otherwise a pretty introverted narrative, it is to lose miserable, vicious colonial wars, to set off nuclear bombs, or to cultivate unpleasant African dictators.

The problem is with all those clippings: too much information, too little thesis. The reader is confronted with a river of facts, but most of the analysis is at the level of (to be brutally pejorative) the ex-cathedra musings of a Guardian-reading sociologist. Take the section on May 1968. One skeptical view (e.g. Tony Judt, following Raymond Aron) is that May 1968 was a load of narcissism; Kedward though, even after listing the only concrete grievance of the students as lack of access to the girls' dorms, clearly thinks that it was a big and substantive deal, but I couldn't identify why he thinks so. The best I could make out was that I should see it all as a manifestation of the Zeitgeist, but this is implied more than stated, with talk about a post-modern society - however while I more or less know what a post-modern building or painting is, I don't know what a post-modern society is.

Here are some questions and issues that I missed:

I was expecting a much more differentiated analysis of French politics, especially in the first section. Kedward has little more than a left and a right. He doesn't much like the French right (fair enough - a lot of it isn't, historically, very attractive) but he doesn't provide a feel for the theoretical, or for that matter moral, complexity of political development on the left (c.f. Sheri Berman, for instance).

Why is the modern French university system so mediocre (and how much, if at all, does that mediocrity have to do with the lasting effects of 1968)? What is with mobs in the streets as a normal part of politics? Why has France suffered such brutal structural unemployment in the last 30 years or so - Kedward talks a lot about this, but never actually thinks about it, he just treats it as some sort of exogenous given. Why French Anti-Americanism (and its influence on foreign policy)? What about the concerns and dynamics of the bourgeoisie? They are remarkably underrepresented in the discussion, especially in the last section, but as a class they are the core political and cultural player. Why should I care about, admire, or like, France?

Not easy to digest, but a rich repast of information
This is a book for those who are already reasonably familiar with the outlines of French history in the 20th century.For them Kedward's formidable researches (the bibliography of Selected Further Reading runs to 26 pages) will provide a mass of details not easily found elsewhere;but it seems to me that he takes quite a lot of previous knowledge for granted (one tiny example out of very many: he assumes that readers know what the Schlieffen Plan was), and even for those who do have a good general knowledge, the book is quite densely written and in places rather stodgy (in at least one chapter - chapter 7 - almost impenetrably so).Kedward's ambition is to be thoroughly comprehensive - a tall order even for 650 pages of text. The result is that often the text is studded with the names of everybody who was anybody in France, and in places it reads a bit like a catalogue.In chapter 6, for example, every artist of significance is given about a sentence or two, which serves as a reminder to those who know something of their work, but cannot really bring it to life for those who do not.The arrangement of the book is chronological, but social and economic history - worthy, but sometimes, I fear, very dull - take up much more space than political history;character sketches of leading politicians are extremely compressed - just the odd adjective or two - and so areaccounts of French foreign policy, though all the main events are featured.It all makes for rather dry reading.

It is, I think, much more difficult to write the domestic history of France than, say, the domestic history of Britain during the same period - largely because of the multiplicity of French political parties, the constantly shifting coalitions and the resulting short-lived nature of the governments of the Third and Fourth Republic.The governments of the Fifth Republic were somewhat more stable, but eventhen there are more parties, more shifting political groupings and more complications than we have in British history - not to mention three periods when powerful presidents have to cohabit with prime ministers and legislatures which are opposed to them.Kedward also makes it clear that the social structure of France is exceptionally complex, for not onlyis there the divide between Paris and the countryside, but the countryside is by no means homogeneous:rural areas vary enormously from left to right.

It is helpful that the book is very well organized, with frequent cross-headings; and it seems to me that the texture lightens somewhat from Chapter 10 - about a third of the way through - onwards.

For myself, I would single out the following as particularly valuable discussions:

- The role of women is given much attention throughout.

- There is an excellent account of the French resistance and of how it was interpreted after the war. One would expect no less from one of the leading historians of that topic.

- Kedward's anger about the folly and viciousness of French colonialism after World War II is manifest.Suppression of the nationalist movements in the colonies was ferocious from the very beginning:Kedward says that the massacre of some 10,000 to 15,000 Algerians in May 1945 (beginning on VE Day!) and an even bigger death toll from aerial bombardments in Vietnam in 1946 were barely mentioned in the French press at the time.But it is odd that there is no mention in the book of Syria and the Lebanon becoming French mandates or on their later achievement of independence.There is also just one paragraph on the Suez War of 1956 (and that does not figure in the index).

- Rightly, much attention is given to farmers, who carry so much more weight in France's politics than they do in Britain.

- Much importance is given to Jack Lang, Mitterand's Minister of Culture, in shaping the cultural climate of France: again a phenomenon that one could not find in Britain.

- There is the problem of ethnic minorities and whether or how to integrate them in French society.As portrayed here, the passions arousedin France are even stronger than they are in Britain, with Le Pen`s Front National a much more powerful influence in France than the National Front is in Britain.It has led to a passionate debate whether admirable diversity within a single French identity or dangerous divisiveness best describes France today.

- Parallel with that debate is the discussion, to which Kedward pays a lot of attention throughout the book, of the many different ways in which the French have interpreted their past.This had been an issue in the 19th century because of the long-lasting and traumatic polarization created by he French Revolution.In the second half of the 20th century it was the problem of how to come to terms with Vichy and also with the Algerian war.As an attempt to heal the wounds, amnesia was for many years promoted by the authorities, and in his last chapter Kedward traces the debates as that amnesia was challenged and broke down.

The treatment of French politics is scandalously scanty in even theBritish quality press, and this book, hard going though it is, is indispensable for those who really want to know in more detail what has been going on in our neighbour just across the Channel.

France and the French sans Passion
I have been looking for a book on modern French history for some time having exhausted the available single topic English language histories such as "A Savage War of Peace" (Algeria), "The Fall of the Third Republic" (1940) and "The Last Valley" (Indochina). Sadly, I am still looking. This is the driest tome that could possibly be penned on the subject. It is beautifully organized and I prize it as a refence book but I cannot just sit down with this title and enjoy myself.

A definitive survey pairs history with social insights for maximum impact.
Everyone tries to explain France, from those who know it well and often travel there to those who have only read about French attitudes and history. Any who would understand the puzzling nature of the French psyche, though, must understand its history and culture - and that's where the weighty and well-researched FRANCE AND THE FRENCH: A MODERN HISTORY comes in. Kedward explores French history using a lively narrative style to bring its majors modern influencing events to life. Chapters draw some important connections between these events and French attitudes, surveying those who confronted and created the military, political and social changes in the country during modern times. A definitive survey pairs history with social insights for maximum impact.
... Read more

Product Description
This volume provides an authoritative synthesis of recent work on the social history of France and is now thoroughly revised and updated to cover the 'long nineteenth century' from 1789-1914.Peter McPhee offers both a readable narrative and a distinctive, coherent argument about this century.McPhee explores themes such as peasant interaction with the environment, the changing experience of work and leisure, the nature of crime and protest, changing demographic patterns and family structure, the religious practices of workers and peasants, and the ideology and internal repercussions of colonisation.
... Read more

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Product Description
Paris stands as a centre of culture, a leader in fashion and art, and a focal point in the world, where ideas meet, clash, and are redefined. In this illustrated volume, the author spans Paris' history from its modest beginnings on a bit of island in the Seine to today's thriving metropolis. This book outlines the historical context of Paris' major battles waged over religion, the monarchy, and democracy; it covers the dramatic events of the French Revolution, the occupation of Paris in World War II, and the student revolts of May 1968. Additionally, it serves as a useful reference guide to Parisian landmarks. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Good primer
I agree with the reviewer who wrote this is a lot more history than you get from a guidebook but much less than a semester of French history. I read it after visiting Paris and already knowing a little history of what I was seeing (couldn't get it beforehand). Like the history section of a Frommer's or Fodor's, this gives a sense of the places you see (Louvre, Notre Dame, Tour Eiffel, etc.). Where it is lacking is storytelling detail for some of the more interesting events, such as the execution of Louis the XIV and Marie Antoinette. Its almost not mentioned. All in all, a worthy 175 pages to read before visiting Paris considering the time investment.

Do Paris in Two Hours
Paris may be eternal, the city of light, but this brief intorduction to its history covers only the past three thousand years, but that's enough. This is not for scholars. It is for you and me; we want to get a glimpse of all Paris has been.

I believe the author does us a great service by giving us a survey, not an academic tome. I got a lot out of it. Did you know the vikings raided Paris in the late middle ages, not once but several times?

That rulers have, even to the present, feared the Paris mobs? That St. Denis was decapitated on Montmartre (mountain of the martyr) and according to tradition, carried his head to what is now a Paris suburb? That roman baths and arenas exist even now in the city? That the Eiffel tower once was in danger of being torn down?

And, Joan of Arc once fought to take the city, held by her enemies. And Joan of Arc herself, well ...You'll just have to read this well written history for the rest of us! ... Read more

Product Description

Accessories to Modernity explores the ways in which feminine fashion accessories, such as cashmere shawls, parasols, fans, and handbags, became essential instruments in the bourgeois idealization of womanhood in nineteenth-century France. Considering how these fashionable objects were portrayed in fashion journals and illustrations, as well as fiction, the book explores the histories and cultural weight of the objects themselves and offers fresh readings of works by Balzac, Flaubert, and Zola, some of the most widely read novels of the period.

As social boundaries were becoming more and more fluid in the nineteenth century, one effort to impose order over the looming confusion came, in the case of women, through fashion, and the fashion accessory thus became an ever more crucial tool through which social distinction could be created, projected, and maintained. Looking through the lens of fashion, Susan Hiner explores the interplay of imperialist expansion and domestic rituals, the assertion of privilege in the face of increasing social mobility, gendering practices and their relation to social hierarchies, and the rise of commodity culture and woman's paradoxical status as both consumer and object within it.

Through her close focus on these luxury objects, Hiner reframes the feminine fashion accessory as a key symbol of modernity that bridges the erotic and proper, the domestic and exotic, and mass production and the work of art while making a larger claim about the "accessory" status—in terms of both complicity and subordination—of bourgeois women in nineteenth-century France. Women were not simply passive bystanders but rather were themselves accessories to the work of modernity from which they were ostensibly excluded.

Customer Reviews (1)

Moving the Marginalized to the Center
In her fascinating new book, Dr Susan Hiner examines women's fashion accessories in 19th century France as signifiers of social and political status:"As cultural signs of identity (class, race, gender), these accessories become vital documents in the construction of modernity itself" (Hiner p. 4).By moving previously marginalized women's fashion accessories to the center of her discussion, Hiner demonstrates how the items found in the corbeille de mariage, the wedding gift basket, "institutionalized certain goods--silks, cashmere, shawls, jewelry, lace, fans--as indices of respectability," (p.5) since these luxury items would have been, theoretically at least, unattainable for less than respectable women while at the same time signifying the erotics of marriage for the virginal bride.By reading these items through the literature of the day, including novels, fashion magazines, advertisements, etiquette manuals, and popular drama, Hiner exposes these feminine objects as cultural markers signaling the essence of modernity itself. ... Read more

Product Description
This book covers the years of 1830-1848, an important but often neglected period of French History. While paying particular attention to diplomatic and political affairs, the book also provides analyses of of the society, culture and economy of the age. The book reveals all areas of life as a battleground - socialism emerges to confront older revolutionary loyalties; the disparity between rich and poor increases; and there are even disputes and clashes within the Catholic Church. All this takes place under the reign of Louis-Philippe, presented here as a well-meaning monarch attempting to build an atmosphere of consensus and stability in a period of dramatic change. ... Read more

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La Belle France is a sweeping, grand narrative written with all the verve, erudition and vividness that are the hallmarks of the acclaimed British historian Alistair Horne. It recounts the hugely absorbing story of the country that has contributed to the world so much talent, style and political innovation.

Beginning with Julius Caesar’s division of Gaul into three parts, Horne leads us—in quick, illuminating vignettes—through the ages: from Charlemagne, Philippe-Auguste and the Sun King, Louis XIV, to Cardinal Richelieu and Napoleon Bonaparte, Charles de Gaulle and Jacques Chirac. He shows us a country that has suffered and survived seemingly endless warfare: the Hundred Years’ War, the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars, the Franco-Prussian War, World Wars I and II and colonial battles in Indochina and Algeria. He gives us luminous portraits of the nation’s great leaders, but he is as thorough and compelling in his discussions of the lives of the peasants, the haute bourgeoisie, the sansculottes of the Revolution and the great philosophers and writers, artists and composers—Montaigne, Voltaire, Balzac, Renoir, Bizet, Monet, Proust, Satie and Sartre, among them—who have helped shape Western thought and culture.

This is a captivating, beautifully illustrated and comprehensive yet concise history of France. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

A Great Introduction to French History
I would think that Alistair Horne's "La Belle France" would appeal most and be most useful to someone who has a limited knowledge of French and/or European History.As someone who is such a reader, I have nothing to say about any percieved errors in this book, but I can say that it fulfills its most important duties: it sparks an interest in further reading, it creates the structure or outline that more in-depth study requires, and it makes for an engaging and entertaining read in its own right.

"La Belle France" also gave me quite a bit of empathy and admiration for France.I don't think one could walk away from this book thinking of the French as being a bunch of "cheese eating surrender monkeys".It is simply impossible for we crowing Americans to comprehend the horrors and instability that France has experienced since 1789, and even before that.Those horrors may have been the result of their own actions, many of the horrors may have benn committed by their own hand, but they were horrors none the less.I don't think many Americans realize that France lost 100,000 lives attempting to resist the German march to Paris in WWII, hardly a pathetic surrender.This coming less than 30 years after 1.4 million of their citizens were killed and their countryside demolished in WW1.This perspective doesn't absolve (for example) those, under Vichy, who enabled the Nazis.It does, however, make it harder to cast judgement on the France as a nation. The resort to cliche is an indicator that one doesn't know what their talking about.This book helps to dispel the cliches.

France is so compelling because it is the most confounding country in Europe, particularly for "un anglo-saxon."In both Mitterand and de Gaulle, Horne sees those things, not quite contradictions, that make France a subtle an difficult place to understand. The problem Horne leaves the reader with is where do we go next?Do we study de Gaulle, Mitterand, Napolean, the revoltuion, the Commune?Horne's chapters of each of these topics were incredibly interesting.Not a bad problem to have.I will certianly be reading "Seven Ages of Paris".

FYI, a very basic understanding of French would be helpful when reading "La Belle France", being that some basic phrases are not translated.I thought this untranslated statement from a woman harassed for dating a German during the occupation was both sad and quite funny: "Mon cul est international, mais mon coeur es toujour francias!"

Only a decent history
If you want a readable and simple history of France this is a good book, but it is not a great book and there are entire pieces of it that could have been left out.The first problem is that most of the book up untill the 16th century, or up until Louis XIV, is basically weak, it is weak on writing and comprehension and story-telling.It is just not very interesting and cobbled together, collected facts.There is absolutely no sense of pre 800 A.D France.The period after Louis XIV however is well written with a full understanding of the currents in French politics, culture and military affairs.

Therefore this is a good read, a very general history and one that someone should buy who knows very little of French history.If you are remotely familiar with the outlines of French history you may be disappointed.

Seth J. Frantzman

An Okay Book
La Belle France: A Short History is a book with two sides. The first part of the book deals with the history of France before the reign of Napolean, an era which the author, Alistair Horne, has never written about before. This part of the book presents a confusing jumble of annoying ancedotes that confuse the reader and make it hard to remember what the chapters were about. The second part of the book, beginning with the reign of Napolean and ending at the election of Chirac, provides a fairly well written overview of the more modern period of France, an era which the author is more used to. In the end, this book is a good beginners look at the history of France, but should definately no be counted on as a solid background in the history of one of the most influential and illustrious nations in Europe.

A collection of anecdotes
This is not the place to go to in order to find out much about France or its history.Sketchy, repetitious, a mishmash of anecdotes.If you're looking for amusing tidbits, there's a plethora of them here, but they're presented in a confusing, non-chronological order.

An Engaging, Brief History of France
This book is a good one volume history of France.The author, Alistair Horne, who has written numerous books on the history of France, has provided a brief chronological overview of many centuries of French history in an engaging narrative.The major historical periods and events are summarized, from the rule of the Capetians to the presidency of Mitterand of the late 20th century.Horne seems particularly adept at describing French history of the 19th and 20th centuries, vividly bringing to life events such as the Nazi occupation of Paris.He describes the major political, social and economic forces across centuries and also highlights how key historical figures (e.g., Louis XIV, Napoleon) have shaped the country's history.The book, however, almost seems too brief.I was left wanting more information and more detail about specific historical periods and events.The book also does not provide much on the history of France prior to Philippe-Auguste. In addition, more explanation and background about important events, such as the Commune of Paris and Communards, would have been helpful.The inclusion of French phrases that are not translated is unfortunate, and the Index could be more exhaustive (e.g., the Index does not provide any page references to 20th century French literature even though several pages are devoted to this topic).Despite these concerns, I would recommend the book as a good, popular history. It is a highly readable and informative portrait of a fascinating country. ... Read more

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France is the most visited country ofEurope- with around 75 million tourist ,the World Tourism Organization puts it well in the lead of Spain and the United States.With everything a tourist could possibly require in an area not quite the size of the state of Texas,France is noted for the beauty of its countryside,the antiquity of its cities, the richness of its culture, the diversity of its cuisine, and the style of its fashionable people. France's turbulent political life has left its indelible mark on the landscape. Wonderful historic buildings give its towns indicates villages and communes a great range of architectural interest and beauty. France:History and Landscape provides a truly splendid visual survey of this history from Roman times as exemplified by graceful amphitheaters and aqueducts. The Middle Ages and Renaissance are well illustrated by such photogenic sites as the walled cities of Carcassonne and le Puy or the myriad castles all over the country,many of them dating from the Hundred Years War against the English. The apogee of French Royal power was the glorious reign of the Sun King Louis XIV whose legacy is the beautiful palace of Versailles. But it would be wrong to think that all France's beauty is in its older buildings. France has always been a country of innovation as shown by Paris's signature Eiffel Tower or the great arch of La Defense. ... Read more

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Celebrated by writers from Petrach to Peter Mayle, Provence's rugged mountains, wild maquis, and lavender-filled meadows are world-famous. Martin Garrett explores a region littered with ancient monuments and medieval castles.Looking at the vibrant dockside atmosphere of Lubéron, he considers how writers like Mistral and Daudet have captured the character of a place and its people.He traces the development of Provence as a Roman outpost, medieval kingdom, and modern region of France, revealing through its landmarks the people and events that have shaped its often tumultuous history. Through its architecture, literature, and popular culture, this book analyzes and celebrates the identity of a region famous for its pastis and pétanque.Linking the past to the present, it also evokes the intense light and sun-baked stones that have attracted generations of painters and writers. ... Read more

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The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: History / United States / General; ... Read more