The Radiance of France, new edition

Author: Gabrielle Hecht
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262266172
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 497

Book Description
How it happened that technological prowess and national glory (or “radiance,” which also means “radiation” in French) became synonymous in France as nowhere else. In the aftermath of World War II, as France sought a distinctive role for itself in the modern, postcolonial world, the nation and its leaders enthusiastically embraced large technological projects in general and nuclear power in particular. The Radiance of France asks how it happened that technological prowess and national glory (or “radiance,” which also means “radiation” in French) became synonymous in France as nowhere else. To answer this question, Gabrielle Hecht has forged an innovative combination of technology studies and cultural and political history in a book that, as Michel Callon writes in the new foreword to this edition, “not only sheds new light on the role of technology in the construction of national identities” but is also “a seminal contribution to the history of contemporary France.” Proposing the concept of technopolitical regime as a way to analyze the social, political, cultural, and technological dynamics among engineering elites, unionized workers, and rural communities, Hecht shows how the history of France's first generation of nuclear reactors is also a history of the multiple meanings of nationalism, from the postwar period (and France's desire for post-Vichy redemption) to 1969 and the adoption of a “Frenchified” American design. This paperback edition of Hecht's groundbreaking book includes both Callon's foreword and an afterword by the author in which she brings the story up to date, and reflects on such recent developments as the 2007 French presidential election, the promotion of nuclear power as the solution to climate change, and France's aggressive exporting of nuclear technology.

A History of France

Author: John Julius Norwich
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
ISBN: 0802146708
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 493

Book Description
An “engaging, enthusiastic, sympathetic, funny” journey through French history from the New York Times–bestselling author of Absolute Monarchs (The Wall Street Journal). Beginning with Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul in the first century BC, this study of French history comprises a cast of legendary characters―Charlemagne, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Joan of Arc, and Marie Antoinette, to name a few―as John Julius Norwich chronicles France’s often violent, always fascinating history. From the French Revolution―after which neither France nor the world would be the same again―to the storming of the Bastille, from the Vichy regime and the Resistance to the end of the Second World War, A History of France is packed with heroes and villains, battles and rebellion—written with both an expert command of detail and a lively appreciation for the subject matter by this “true master of narrative history” (Simon Sebag Montefiore).

The Pasteurization of France

Author: Bruno Latour
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674265300
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
What can one man accomplish, even a great man and brilliant scientist? Although every town in France has a street named for Louis Pasteur, was he alone able to stop people from spitting, persuade them to dig drains, influence them to undergo vaccination? Pasteur’s success depended upon a whole network of forces, including the public hygiene movement, the medical profession (both military physicians and private practitioners), and colonial interests. It is the operation of these forces, in combination with the talent of Pasteur, that Bruno Latour sets before us as a prime example of science in action. Latour argues that the triumph of the biologist and his methodology must be understood within the particular historical convergence of competing social forces and conflicting interests. Yet Pasteur was not the only scientist working on the relationships of microbes and disease. How was he able to galvanize the other forces to support his own research? Latour shows Pasteur’s efforts to win over the French public—the farmers, industrialists, politicians, and much of the scientific establishment. Instead of reducing science to a given social environment, Latour tries to show the simultaneous building of a society and its scientific facts. The first section of the book, which retells the story of Pasteur, is a vivid description of an approach to science whose theoretical implications go far beyond a particular case study. In the second part of the book, “Irreductions,” Latour sets out his notion of the dynamics of conflict and interaction, of the “relation of forces.” Latour’s method of analysis cuts across and through the boundaries of the established disciplines of sociology, history, and the philosophy of science, to reveal how it is possible not to make the distinction between reason and force. Instead of leading to sociological reductionism, this method leads to an unexpected irreductionism.

Race in France

Author: Herrick Chapman
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1782381791
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
Scholars across disciplines on both sides of the Atlantic have recently begun to open up, as never before, the scholarly study of race and racism in France. These original essays bring together in one volume new work in history, sociology, anthropology, political science, and legal studies. Each of the eleven articles presents fresh research on the tension between a republican tradition in France that has long denied the legitimacy of acknowledging racial difference and a lived reality in which racial prejudice shaped popular views about foreigners, Jews, immigrants, and colonial people. Several authors also examine efforts to combat racism since the 1970s.

France under the Directory

Author: Martyn Lyons
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521207850
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Book Description
On 9 thermidor Year 2, Robespierre fell; on18 brumaire Year 8, a coup d'état brought Bonaparte to power. This book demonstrates that the interval between these two momentous events was also of crucial importance. Using the findings of recent research, it presents a balanced appraisal of the thermidorean and directorial regimes to the English student. For Jacobin sympathizers thermidor and the Directory represented the betrayal of the revolutionary idea; for Bonapartist propagandists it represented chaos and corruption, and the darker the Directory could be painted, the more Bonaparte's reputation would be flattered. Dr Lyons attempts to dispose of these myths. He stresses the Directory's successes as well as its failures, and emphasizes elements of continuity which link it both with the Jacobin regime and with the Consulate. The regime inherited a heavy burden of war, inflation and food shortages, yet it remained revolutionary in its Republicanism, its anticlericalism, and its desire to carry the fruits of the Revolution to the rest of Europe. At the same time it laid the foundations of financial stability and administrative efficiency on which Bonaparte was to build.

French Wines

Author: Robert Joseph
Publisher: DK Publishing (Dorling Kindersley)
ISBN: 9780789446251
Category : Wine and wine making
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Cultured connoisseurs and novices alike will find useful and detailed profiles of hundreds of wines from every region, major vineyard, and appellation of France. Special features include a Glossary of wine terminology, an introductory section about viticulture and wine selection and storage, and a tour itinerary and food specialty for each wine-producing region.

My Good Life in France

Author: Janine Marsh
Publisher: Michael O'Mara Books
ISBN: 1782437339
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 207

Book Description
Ten years ago, Janine Marsh decided to leave her corporate life behind to fix up a run-down barn in northern France. This is the true story of her rollercoaster ride.

A Hero of France

Author: Alan Furst
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 081299650X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling master espionage writer, hailed by Vince Flynn as “the best in the business,” comes a riveting novel about the French Resistance in Nazi-occupied Paris. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST 1941. The City of Light is dark and silent at night. But in Paris and in the farmhouses, barns, and churches of the French countryside, small groups of ordinary men and women are determined to take down the occupying forces of Adolf Hitler. Mathieu, a leader of the French Resistance, leads one such cell, helping downed British airmen escape back to England. Alan Furst’s suspenseful, fast-paced thriller captures this dangerous time as no one ever has before. He brings Paris and occupied France to life, along with courageous citizens who outmaneuver collaborators, informers, blackmailers, and spies, risking everything to fulfill perilous clandestine missions. Aiding Mathieu as part of his covert network are Lisette, a seventeen-year-old student and courier; Max de Lyon, an arms dealer turned nightclub owner; Chantal, a woman of class and confidence; Daniel, a Jewish teacher fueled by revenge; Joëlle, who falls in love with Mathieu; and Annemarie, a willful aristocrat with deep roots in France, and a desire to act. As the German military police heighten surveillance, Mathieu and his team face a new threat, dispatched by the Reich to destroy them all. Shot through with the author’s trademark fine writing, breathtaking suspense, and intense scenes of seduction and passion, Alan Furst’s A Hero of France is at once one of the finest novels written about the French Resistance and the most gripping novel yet by the living master of the spy thriller.

Summers in France

Author: Kathryn M. Ireland
Publisher: Gibbs Smith
ISBN: 1423615328
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 115

Book Description
Excursions to flea markets and antiques shops and snapshots of outdoor activities punctuate this luscious book of French country living, which includes home design and ideas plus favorite recipes for Mediterranean-inspired lunches and convivial candlelit dinners.

My Life in France

Author: Julia Child
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307264726
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Julia's story of her transformative years in France in her own words is "captivating ... her marvelously distinctive voice is present on every page.” (San Francisco Chronicle). Although she would later singlehandedly create a new approach to American cuisine with her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her television show The French Chef, Julia Child was not always a master chef. Indeed, when she first arrived in France in 1948 with her husband, Paul, who was to work for the USIS, she spoke no French and knew nothing about the country itself. But as she dove into French culture, buying food at local markets and taking classes at the Cordon Bleu, her life changed forever with her newfound passion for cooking and teaching. Julia’s unforgettable story—struggles with the head of the Cordon Bleu, rejections from publishers to whom she sent her now-famous cookbook, a wonderful, nearly fifty-year long marriage that took the Childs across the globe—unfolds with the spirit so key to Julia’s success as a chef and a writer, brilliantly capturing one of America’s most endearing personalities.