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Author: Stacy Schiff
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 1429907991
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 530
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Book Description
Soon to be a streaming series ● In this dazzling work of history, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author follows Benjamin Franklin to France for the crowning achievement of his career In December of 1776 a small boat delivered an old man to France." So begins an enthralling narrative account of how Benjamin Franklin--seventy years old, without any diplomatic training, and possessed of the most rudimentary French--convinced France, an absolute monarchy, to underwrite America's experiment in democracy. When Franklin stepped onto French soil, he well understood he was embarking on the greatest gamble of his career. By virtue of fame, charisma, and ingenuity, Franklin outmaneuvered British spies, French informers, and hostile colleagues; engineered the Franco-American alliance of 1778; and helped to negotiate the peace of 1783. The eight-year French mission stands not only as Franklin's most vital service to his country but as the most revealing of the man. In A Great Improvisation, Stacy Schiff draws from new and little-known sources to illuminate the least-explored part of Franklin's life. Here is an unfamiliar, unforgettable chapter of the Revolution, a rousing tale of American infighting, and the treacherous backroom dealings at Versailles that would propel George Washington from near decimation at Valley Forge to victory at Yorktown. From these pages emerge a particularly human and yet fiercely determined Founding Father, as well as a profound sense of how fragile, improvisational, and international was our country's bid for independence.
Author: Stacy Schiff
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 1429907991
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 530
Get Book Here
Book Description
Soon to be a streaming series ● In this dazzling work of history, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author follows Benjamin Franklin to France for the crowning achievement of his career In December of 1776 a small boat delivered an old man to France." So begins an enthralling narrative account of how Benjamin Franklin--seventy years old, without any diplomatic training, and possessed of the most rudimentary French--convinced France, an absolute monarchy, to underwrite America's experiment in democracy. When Franklin stepped onto French soil, he well understood he was embarking on the greatest gamble of his career. By virtue of fame, charisma, and ingenuity, Franklin outmaneuvered British spies, French informers, and hostile colleagues; engineered the Franco-American alliance of 1778; and helped to negotiate the peace of 1783. The eight-year French mission stands not only as Franklin's most vital service to his country but as the most revealing of the man. In A Great Improvisation, Stacy Schiff draws from new and little-known sources to illuminate the least-explored part of Franklin's life. Here is an unfamiliar, unforgettable chapter of the Revolution, a rousing tale of American infighting, and the treacherous backroom dealings at Versailles that would propel George Washington from near decimation at Valley Forge to victory at Yorktown. From these pages emerge a particularly human and yet fiercely determined Founding Father, as well as a profound sense of how fragile, improvisational, and international was our country's bid for independence.
Author: Stacy Schiff
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780805080094
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 530
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Book Description
Reveals how Benjamin Franklin outmaneuvered hostile colleagues, British spies, French informers, and other challenges to convince France to underwrite America's experiment in democracy.
Author: Stacy Schiff
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780805066333
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 540
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Book Description
"In A Great Improvisation Stacy Schiff offers an account of Franklin's Parisian adventure and of America's debut on the world stage. Here is the unfamiliar chapter of the Revolution, a tale of American infighting and treacherous backroom dealings."--BOOK JACKET.
Author: Stephen Nachmanovitch
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 144067308X
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 257
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Book Description
Free Play is about the inner sources of spontaneous creation. It is about why we create and what we learn when we do. It is about the flow of unhindered creative energy: the joy of making art in all its varied forms. An international bestseller and beloved classic, Free Play is an inspiring and provocative book, directed toward people in any field who want to contact, honor, and strengthen their own creative powers. It reveals how inspiration arises within us, how that inspiration may be blocked, derailed or obscured, and how finally it can be liberated—how we can be liberated—to speak or sing, write or paint, dance or play, with our own authentic voice. Stephen Nachmanovitch, a pioneer in free improvisation, integrates material from a wide variety of sources among the arts, sciences, and spiritual traditions of humanity, drawing on unusual quotes, amusing and illuminating anecdotes, and original metaphors. The whole enterprise of improvisation in life and art, of recovering free play and awakening creativity, is about being true to ourselves and our visions. Free Play brings us into direct, active contact with boundless creative energies that we may not even know we had.
Author: Keith Johnstone
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136610456
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 206
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Book Description
Keith Johnstone's involvement with the theatre began when George Devine and Tony Richardson, artistic directors of the Royal Court Theatre, commissioned a play from him. This was in 1956. A few years later he was himself Associate Artistic Director, working as a play-reader and director, in particular helping to run the Writers' Group. The improvisatory techniques and exercises evolved there to foster spontaneity and narrative skills were developed further in the actors' studio then in demonstrations to schools and colleges and ultimately in the founding of a company of performers, called The Theatre Machine. Divided into four sections, 'Status', 'Spontaneity', 'Narrative Skills', and 'Masks and Trance', arranged more or less in the order a group might approach them, the book sets out the specific techniques and exercises which Johnstone has himself found most useful and most stimulating. The result is both an ideas book and a fascinating exploration of the nature of spontaneous creativity.
Author: Clem Maginniss
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781913336158
Category : World War, 1939-1945
Languages : en
Pages : 432
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Book Description
A Great Feat of Improvisation is a unique publication on a forgotten aspect of an important campaign for the British Army.
Author: Derek Leebaert
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374250723
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 625
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Book Description
A new understanding of the post World War II era, showing what occurred when the British Empire wouldn’t step aside for the rising American superpower—with global insights for today. An enduring myth of the twentieth century is that the United States rapidly became a superpower in the years after World War II, when the British Empire—the greatest in history—was too wounded to maintain a global presence. In fact, Derek Leebaert argues in Grand Improvisation, the idea that a traditionally insular United States suddenly transformed itself into the leader of the free world is illusory, as is the notion that the British colossus was compelled to retreat. The United States and the U.K. had a dozen abrasive years until Washington issued a “declaration of independence” from British influence. Only then did America explicitly assume leadership of the world order just taking shape. Leebaert’s character-driven narrative shows such figures as Churchill, Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennan in an entirely new light, while unveiling players of at least equal weight on pivotal events. Little unfolded as historians believe: the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan; the Korean War; America’s descent into Vietnam. Instead, we see nonstop U.S. improvisation until America finally lost all caution and embraced obligations worldwide, a burden we bear today. Understanding all of this properly is vital to understanding the rise and fall of superpowers, why we’re now skeptical of commitments overseas, how the Middle East plunged into disorder, why Europe is fracturing, what China intends—and the ongoing perils to the U.S. world role.
Author: Jean-Michel Pilc
Publisher: Balquhidder Music/Glen Lyon
ISBN: 0985903945
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 158
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Book Description
Jean-Michel Pilc, jazz pianist and faculty member of Steinhardt School, New York University, has written a remarkable book about the artistic and creative process in the arts. The conversational style well suits the wide ranging topic which draws examples from art and music both classical and jazz. A beautifully expressed work on a subject otherwise impossible to write about. Hailed by musicians around the world as enlightened and inspirational.
Author: Stacy Schiff
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307798399
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 887
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Book Description
From a master biographer, the life story of the daring French aviator who became one of the twentieth century's most beloved authors Antoine de Saint-Exupéry disappeared at age forty-four during a reconnaissance flight over southern France. At the time he was best known for a career of daring flights over the Sahara, the Pyrenees, and Patagonia and for his contributions to the science of aviation. But the solitary hours he spent above the earth in open cockpit airplanes gave birth to a more famous legacy, a series of enchanting, autobiographical novels and the classic story The Little Prince, still the most translated book in the French language. An impoverished aristocrat from one of France's oldest families, Saint-Exupéry moved at age twenty-seven to the western Sahara Desert, to live alone in a plank shack and manage the way station for the Aéropostale, the French mail service. His careers as a novelist and an aviator were born here, and his life once he returned to Europe was defined--with brilliant and catastrophic results--by the sense of isolated fascination and curiosity he developed in the desert. In this definitive biography, Pulitzer Prize winner Stacy Schiff reveals an intrepid and unconventional life that rivals the best adventure stories.
Author: David Schoenbrun
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN: 9780060138547
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 450
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Book Description
This book depicts Benjamin Franklin's trip to Paris in 1776 to negotiate America's first foreign alliance and the difficulty of the task.
