A landmark biography of one of the most notorious and controversial protagonists of the French Revolution—Jean-Paul Marat.Who better to pen an authoritative biography of Jean-Paul Marat (1743–93) than preeminent historian of France Keith Michael Baker? Decades in the making, this monumental work takes readers on a journey through the intriguing, sometimes shocking life of this writer and thinker.Starting with Marat's Swiss family and upbringing, Baker then ...

This book is both an analysis of the Bastille as cultural paradigm and a case study on the history of French political culture. It examines in particular the storming and subsequent fall of the Bastille in Paris on July 14, 1789 and how it came to represent the cornerstone of the French Revolution, becoming a symbol of the repression of the Old Regime. Lüsebrink and Reichardt use this semiotic reading of the Bastille to reveal how historical symbols are generated; what these symbols’ funct...

The "Arab Spring" was heralded and publicly embraced by foreign leaders of many countries that define themselves by their own historic revolutions. The contributors to this volume examine the legitimacy of these comparisons by exploring whether or not all modern revolutions follow a pattern or script. Traditionally, historians have studied revolutions as distinct and separate events. Drawing on close familiarity with many different cultures, languages, and historical transitions, this anth...

Cicero's Rome's greatest orator, Marcus Tullius Cicero was a renowned philosopher and political theorist whose influence upon the history of European literature has been immense. For the first time in digital publishing history, readers can now enjoy Cicero’s complete works in English and Latin on their eReaders, with beautiful illustrations, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)* Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Cicero's life and...

“A tour de force.”—Gordon S. Wood, New York Times Book ReviewHow were human rights invented, and how does their tumultuous history influence their perception and our ability to protect them today? From Professor Lynn Hunt comes this extraordinary cultural and intellectual history, which traces the roots of human rights to the rejection of torture as a means for finding the truth. She demonstrates how ideas of human relationships portrayed in novels and art helped spread th...

This book tells nothing less than the story of how the modern, Western view of the world was born. Cultural and intellectual historian Anthony Pagden explains how, and why, the ideal of a universal, global, and cosmopolitan society became such a central part of the Western imagination in the ferment of the Enlightenment - and how these ideas have done battle with an inward-looking, tradition-oriented view of the world ever since. Cosmopolitanism is an ancient creed; but in its modern form ...

A panoramic global history of the nineteenth centuryA monumental history of the nineteenth century, The Transformation of the World offers a panoramic and multifaceted portrait of a world in transition. Jürgen Osterhammel, an eminent scholar who has been called the Braudel of the nineteenth century, moves beyond conventional Eurocentric and chronological accounts of the era, presenting instead a truly global history of breathtaking scope and towering erudi...

"A thrilling frock-by-frock account . . . energetic and alive with [Weber's] own feminine pleasure at a beautiful dress or an outrageous pouf." — Entertainment Weekly (grade: A)Marie Antoinette has always stood as an icon of supreme style, but surprisingly none of her biographers have paid sustained attention to her clothes. In Queen of Fashion, Caroline Weber shows how Marie Antoinette developed her reputation f...

How to Win an Election is an ancient Roman guide for campaigning that is as up-to-date as tomorrow's headlines. In 64 BC when idealist Marcus Cicero, Rome's greatest orator, ran for consul (the highest office in the Republic), his practical brother Quintus decided he needed some no-nonsense advice on running a successful campaign. What follows in his short letter are timeless bits of political wisdom, from the importance of promising everything to everybody and reminding voters ab...

The theory and practice of history and its relevance to the modern world, by Britains greatest radical historian.

When Jeanne-Antoinette was nine, she was told by a fortune teller that she would one day become the mistress of the handsome young Louix XV - from that day she was groomed to become 'a morsel fit for a King'. Nancy Mitford lovingly tells the story of how the little girl rose, against a backdrop of savage social-climbing, intrigue, excess and high drama, to become the most powerful women of the eighteenth century French court, Le Pompadour.

Fascism, communism, genocide, slavery, racism, imperialism--the West has no shortage of reasons for guilt. And, indeed, since the Holocaust and the end of World War II, Europeans in particular have been consumed by remorse. But Pascal Bruckner argues that guilt has now gone too far. It has become a pathology, and even an obstacle to fighting today's atrocities. Bruckner, one of France's leading writers and public intellectuals, argues that obsessive guilt has obscured important realities. ...