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Author: Graham Robb
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039306882X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 475
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Book Description
"A witty, engaging narrative style…[Robb's] approach is particularly engrossing." —New York Times Book Review A narrative of exploration—full of strange landscapes and even stranger inhabitants—that explains the enduring fascination of France. While Gustave Eiffel was changing the skyline of Paris, large parts of France were still terra incognita. Even in the age of railways and newspapers, France was a land of ancient tribal divisions, prehistoric communication networks, and pre-Christian beliefs. French itself was a minority language. Graham Robb describes that unknown world in arresting narrative detail. He recounts the epic journeys of mapmakers, scientists, soldiers, administrators, and intrepid tourists, of itinerant workers, pilgrims, and herdsmen with their millions of migratory domestic animals. We learn how France was explored, charted, and colonized, and how the imperial influence of Paris was gradually extended throughout a kingdom of isolated towns and villages. The Discovery of France explains how the modern nation came to be and how poorly understood that nation still is today. Above all, it shows how much of France—past and present—remains to be discovered. A New York Times Notable Book, Publishers Weekly Best Book, Slate Best Book, and Booklist Editor's Choice.
Author: Graham Robb
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039306882X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 475
Get Book Here
Book Description
"A witty, engaging narrative style…[Robb's] approach is particularly engrossing." —New York Times Book Review A narrative of exploration—full of strange landscapes and even stranger inhabitants—that explains the enduring fascination of France. While Gustave Eiffel was changing the skyline of Paris, large parts of France were still terra incognita. Even in the age of railways and newspapers, France was a land of ancient tribal divisions, prehistoric communication networks, and pre-Christian beliefs. French itself was a minority language. Graham Robb describes that unknown world in arresting narrative detail. He recounts the epic journeys of mapmakers, scientists, soldiers, administrators, and intrepid tourists, of itinerant workers, pilgrims, and herdsmen with their millions of migratory domestic animals. We learn how France was explored, charted, and colonized, and how the imperial influence of Paris was gradually extended throughout a kingdom of isolated towns and villages. The Discovery of France explains how the modern nation came to be and how poorly understood that nation still is today. Above all, it shows how much of France—past and present—remains to be discovered. A New York Times Notable Book, Publishers Weekly Best Book, Slate Best Book, and Booklist Editor's Choice.
Author: Graham Robb
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 9780330427616
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 500
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Book Description
From maps, migration and magic, to linguistic differences and tribal disputes, The Discovery of France tells the whole story of this remarkable - and surprising - country.
Author: Graham Robb
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324002573
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 468
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Book Description
A wholly original history of France, filled with a lifetime’s knowledge and passion—by the author of the New York Times bestseller Parisians. Beginning with the Roman army’s first recorded encounter with the Gauls and ending in the era of Emmanuel Macron, France takes readers on an endlessly entertaining journey through French history. Frequently hilarious, always surprising, Graham Robb’s France combines the stylistic versatility of a novelist with the deep understanding of a scholar. Robb’s own adventures and discoveries while living, working, and traveling in France connect this tour through space and time with on-the-ground experience. There are scenes of wars and revolutions from the plains of Provence to the slums and boulevards of Paris. Robb conveys with wit and precision what it felt like to look over the shoulder of a young Louis XIV as he planned the vast garden of Versailles, and the dangerous thrill of having a ringside seat at the French revolution. Some of the protagonists may be familiar, but appear here in a very different light—Caesar, Charlemagne, Louis XIV, Napoleon Bonaparte, General Charles de Gaulle. This extraordinary narrative is the fruit of decades of research and thirty thousand miles on a self-propelled, two-wheeled time machine (a bicycle). Even seasoned Francophiles will wonder if they really know that terra incognita on the edge of Europe that is currently referred to as “France.”
Author: Graham Robb
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 0393349926
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
"Intriguing and stimulating." —Jane Smiley, Harper's In this real-life historical treasure hunt, bestselling author Graham Robb—"one of the more unusual and appealing historians currently striding the planet (New York Times)"—reveals the mapping of ancient Gaul as a reflection of the heavens, demonstrates the lasting influence of Druid science and recharts the exploration of the world and the spread of Christianity. This "fascinating" (Los Angeles Times) history offers nothing less than an entirely new understanding of the birth of modern Europe.
Author: Thomas F. McIlwraith
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0742500195
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 514
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Book Description
This classic text retains the superb scholarship of the first edition in a thoroughly revised and accessibly written new edition. With both new and updated essays by distinguished American and Canadian authors, the book provides a comprehensive historical overview of the formation and growth of North American regions from European exploration and colonization to the second half of the twentieth century. Collectively the contributors explore the key themes of acquisition of geographical knowledge, cultural transfer and acculturation, frontier expansion, spatial organization of society, resource exploitation, regional and national integration, and landscape change. With six new chapters, redrawn maps, a new introduction that explores scholarly trends in historical geography since publication of the first edition, and a new final chapter guiding students to the basic sources for historical geographic enquiry, North America will be an indispensable text in historical geography courses.
Author: Sir Walter Raleigh
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : America
Languages : ar
Pages : 202
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Book Description
Author: Richard Campanella
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807173665
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 446
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Book Description
Winner of the SESAH Book Award The West Bank has been a vital part of greater New Orleans since the city’s inception, serving as its breadbasket, foundry, shipbuilder, railroad terminal, train manufacturer, and even livestock hub. At one time it was the Gulf South’s St. Louis, boasting a diversified industrial sector as well as a riverine, mercantilist, and agricultural economy. Today the mostly suburban West Bank is proud but not pretentious, pleasant if not prominent, and a distinct, affordable alternative to the more famous neighborhoods of the East Bank. Richard Campanella is the first to examine the West Bank holistically, as a legitimate subregion with its own story to tell. No other part of greater New Orleans has more diverse yet deeply rooted populations: folks who speak in local accents, who exhibit longstanding cultural traits, and, in some cases, who maintain family ownership of lands held since antebellum times—even as immigrants settle here in growing numbers. Campanella demonstrates that West Bankers have had great agency in their own place-making, and he challenges the notion that their story is subsidiary to a more important narrative across the river. The West Bank of Greater New Orleans is not a traditional history, nor a cultural history, but rather a historical geography, a spatial explanation of how the West Bank’s landscape formed: its terrain, environment, land use, jurisdictions, waterways, industries, infrastructure, neighborhoods, and settlement patterns, past and present. The book explores the drivers, conditions, and power structures behind those landscape transformations, using custom maps, aerial images, photographic montages, and a detailed historical timeline to help tell that complex geographical story. As Campanella shows, there is no “greater New Orleans” without its cross-river component. The West Bank is an essential part of this remarkable metropolis.
Author: Stéphane Henaut
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1620972522
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345
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Book Description
A "delicious" (Dorie Greenspan), "genial" (Kirkus Reviews), "very cool book about the intersections of food and history" (Michael Pollan)—as featured in the New York Times "The complex political, historical, religious and social factors that shaped some of [France's] . . . most iconic dishes and culinary products are explored in a way that will make you rethink every sprinkling of fleur de sel." —The New York Times Book Review Acclaimed upon its hardcover publication as a "culinary treat for Francophiles" (Publishers Weekly), A Bite-Sized History of France is a thoroughly original book that explores the facts and legends of the most popular French foods and wines. Traversing the cuisines of France's most famous cities as well as its underexplored regions, the book is enriched by the "authors' friendly accessibility that makes these stories so memorable" (The New York Times Book Review). This innovative social history also explores the impact of war and imperialism, the age-old tension between tradition and innovation, and the enduring use of food to prop up social and political identities. The origins of the most legendary French foods and wines—from Roquefort and cognac to croissants and Calvados, from absinthe and oysters to Camembert and champagne—also reveal the social and political trends that propelled France's rise upon the world stage. As told by a Franco-American couple (Stéphane is a cheesemonger, Jeni is an academic) this is an "impressive book that intertwines stories of gastronomy, culture, war, and revolution. . . . It's a roller coaster ride, and when you're done you'll wish you could come back for more" (The Christian Science Monitor).
Author: Graham Robb
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 1447240499
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346
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Book Description
Graham Robb's The Ancient Paths will change the way you see European civilization. Inspired by a chance discovery, Robb became fascinated with the world of the Celts: their gods, their art, and, most of all, their sophisticated knowledge of science. His investigations gradually revealed something extraordinary: a lost map, of an empire constructed with precision and beauty across vast tracts of Europe. The map had been forgotten for almost two millennia and its implications were astonishing. Minutely researched and rich in revelations, The Ancient Paths brings to life centuries of our distant history and reinterprets pre-Roman Europe. Told with all of Robb's grace and verve, it is a dazzling, unforgettable book.
Author: Glynis Ridley
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307463532
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 314
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Book Description
The year was 1765. Eminent botanist Philibert Commerson had just been appointed to a grand new expedition: the first French circumnavigation of the world. As the ships’ official naturalist, Commerson would seek out resources—medicines, spices, timber, food—that could give the French an edge in the ever-accelerating race for empire. Jeanne Baret, Commerson’s young mistress and collaborator, was desperate not to be left behind. She disguised herself as a teenage boy and signed on as his assistant. The journey made the twenty-six-year-old, known to her shipmates as “Jean” rather than “Jeanne,” the first woman to ever sail around the globe. Yet so little is known about this extraordinary woman, whose accomplishments were considered to be subversive, even impossible for someone of her sex and class. When the ships made landfall and the secret lovers disembarked to explore, Baret carried heavy wooden field presses and bulky optical instruments over beaches and hills, impressing observers on the ships’ decks with her obvious strength and stamina. Less obvious were the strips of linen wound tight around her upper body and the months she had spent perfecting her masculine disguise in the streets and marketplaces of Paris. Expedition commander Louis-Antoine de Bougainville recorded in his journal that curious Tahitian natives exposed Baret as a woman, eighteen months into the voyage. But the true story, it turns out, is more complicated. In The Discovery of Jeanne Baret, Glynis Ridley unravels the conflicting accounts recorded by Baret’s crewmates to piece together the real story: how Baret’s identity was in fact widely suspected within just a couple of weeks of embarking, and the painful consequences of those suspicions; the newly discovered notebook, written in Baret’s own hand, that proves her scientific acumen; and the thousands of specimens she collected, most famously the showy vine bougainvillea. Ridley also richly explores Baret’s awkward, sometimes dangerous interactions with the men on the ship, including Baret’s lover, the obsessive and sometimes prickly naturalist; a fashion-plate prince who, with his elaborate wigs and velvet garments, was often mistaken for a woman himself; the sour ship’s surgeon, who despised Baret and Commerson; even a Tahitian islander who joined the expedition and asked Baret to show him how to behave like a Frenchman. But the central character of this true story is Jeanne Baret herself, a working-class woman whose scientific contributions were quietly dismissed and written out of history—until now. Anchored in impeccable original research and bursting with unforgettable characters and exotic settings, The Discovery of Jeanne Baret offers this forgotten heroine a chance to bloom at long last.
