This in-depth, page-turning biography of Father Joseph Fessio, S.J., founder of Ignatius Press and the University of San Francisco's Saint Ignatius Institute, is written by one of Fessio's earliest Jesuit mentors, historian Father Cornelius Buckley, S.J.Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area during the golden age after World War II, the bold, often reckless Joe Fessio would suddenly enter the Society of Jesus at age twenty and, by divine providence, find himself studying und...

This book examines the narratives of series heroines that preceded and followed Nancy Drew, each in relation to their social, historical, and economic environments. Covering heroines including Miss Pickerell, Madge Sterling, and Polly the Powers Model, among others, this book illustrates that the recovery of stolen inheritances during the Great Depression serves different social ends than, for example, fighting Germans on an international stage. This book expands scholarship that tends to ...

Cornelius Michael Buckley, S.J. delves into Stephen Larigaudelle Dubuisson’s life, using him as the point of departure to describe the tensions among Jesuits in Maryland after the restoration of the order in 1814. A refugee of the violent slave rebellions in Haiti, where he was born, and the Terror in France, Dubuisson became a clerk in Napoleon’s personal treasury and a resident in the Tuileries. He was a member of Marie Louise’s flight in 1814 and later differed with Napoleon’s account o...

Out of the Flames is an extraordinary story - providing testament to the power of ideas, the enduring legacy of books, and the triumph of individual courage.Out of the Flames tracks the history of The Chrisitianismi Restituto, examining Michael Servetus's life and times and the politics of the first information during the sixteenth century. The Chrisitianismi Restituto, a heretical work of biblical scholarship, written in 1553, a...

The Story of Civilization, Volume VIII: A history of European civilization in the period of Pascal, Moliere, Cromwell, Milton, Peter the Great, Newton, and Spinoza: 1648-1715. This is the eighth volume of the Pulitzer Prize-winning series.

Françoise d'Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon and secret wife of the Sun King, Louis XIV, was born in a bleak French prison in 1635, her father a condemned traitor and murderer, her mother the warden's seduced daughter. A timely pardon and a hopeful Caribbean colonial venture failed to mend the family's fortunes, and Françoise was reduced to begging in the streets. Yet, armed with beauty, intellect, and shrewd judgment, she was to make her way to the center of power at Versailles, the most op...

We think of Voltaire as the epitome of the Enlightenment; in his own time he was also the most famous and controversial figure in Europe.Davidson tells the whole, rich story of his life (1694-1778) - his early imprisonment in the Bastille; exile in England and his mastery of English; an obsession with money, of which he made a huge amount; a scandalous love life; his infatuation with Frederick the Great; a long exile on the borders of Switzerland; his passion for w...

Franco-British Society Literary Prize WinnerShortlisted for The Duff Cooper Prize.Long-listed for The Samuel Johnson Prize.A "One Hundred Best Books of the Decade" in The Times (London)"Judicious, balanced, and admirably clear at every point. This is quite the calmest and least abusive history of the Revolution you will ever read." —Hilary Mantel, London Review of Books

Winner of the Pulitzer PrizeA history of civilization in France, England, and Germany from 1756, and in the remainder Europe from 1715 to 1789.

During much of his life Voltaire's plays and verse made him the toast of society, but his barbed wit and commitment to reason also got him into trouble. Jailed twice and eventually banished by the King, he was an outspoken critic of religious intolerance and persecution. His personal life was as colourful as his intellectual one. Voltaire never married, but had long-term affairs with two women: Emilie, who died after giving birth to the child of another lover, and his niece, Marie-Louise, ...

Modern hoax or the most powerful and secretive cabal in history? Opinions on the mysterious Priory of Sion - in its native French, the Prieuré de Sion - are polarised between these two extremes.If the Priory of Sion's claims are true, it has existed for almost 1,000 years and has counted some of the greatest names in history - Nostradamus, Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton and, nearer our own time, Victor Hugo and Jean Cocteau - in its ranks. It claims to have been behind some of the...

How the Radical Enlightenment inspired and shaped the French RevolutionHistorians of the French Revolution used to take for granted what was also obvious to its contemporary observers—that the Revolution was shaped by the radical ideas of the Enlightenment. Yet in recent decades, scholars have argued that the Revolution was brought about by social forces, politics, economics, or culture—almost anything but abstract notions like liberty or equality. In Revolutio...