The fall of the Bastille on July 14, 1789 has become the commemorative symbol of the French Revolution. But this violent & random act was unrepresentative of the real work of the early revolution, which was taking place ten miles west of Paris, in Versailles. There, the nobles, clergy & commoners of France had just declared themselves a republic, toppling a rotten system of aristocratic privilege & altering the course of history forever. The Revolution was led not by angry mobs, but by the best & brightest of France`s growing bourgeoisie: young, educated, ambitious. Their aim was not to destroy, but to build a better state. In just three months they drew up a Declaration of the Rights of Man, which was to become the archetype of all subsequent Declarations worldwide, & they instituted a system of locally elected administration for France which still survives today. They were determined to create an entirely new system of government, based on rights, equality & the rule of law. In the first three years of the Revolution they went a long way toward doing so. Then came Robespierre, the Terror & unspeakable acts of barbarism. In a clear, dispassionate & fast-moving narrative, Ian Davidson shows how & why the Revolutionaries, in just five years, spiralled from the best of the Enlightenment to tyranny & the Terror. The book reminds us that the Revolution was both an inspiration of the finest principles of a new democracy & an awful warning of what can happen when idealism goes wrong. ...

The French Riviera in the Landscapes of the Imagination guide series; providing an in-depth cultural & account of some of the world’s most memorable & evocative landscapes. Presented as a cultural & literary guide, each title in the series explores the cultural history of a landscape, providing an overview of the area’s development from its earliest roots to the modern day. Particular emphasis is placed on the literary, poetic, architectural, cultural & historical elements that make up the landscape & each title is written & researched by an academic expert. An Epilogue offers suggestion for further reading & indices of literary, artistic & historical names & places & landmarks. ...

The sunlight & calm of the French Riviera have been a magnet for writers since the fourteenth century. The Cote d` Azur has provided the inspiration & setting for some of the greatest literature of the nineteenth & twentieth centuries. ” The French Riviera: A Literary Guide for Travellers” is a reader`s journey along this fabled coast, from Hyeres & St. Tropez in the west to the Italian border in the east, introducing the lives & work of writers who passed this way, from distinguished Nobel laureates to new authors who found their voices there. Ted Jones`s encyclopaedic work covers them all: writers such as Graham Greene & W. Somerset Maugham, who spent much of their lives there; F. Scott Fitzgerald & Guy de Maupassant, whose work it dominates; & the countless writers who simply lingered there, including Louisa M. Alcott, Hans Christian Anderson, J. G. Ballard, Samuel Beckett, Arnold Bennett, William Boyd, Bertholt Brecht, Anthony Burgess, Albert Camus, Bruce Chatwin, Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens, T. S. Eliot, Ian Fleming, Ernest Hemingway, Aldous Huxley, James Joyce, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, A. A. Milne, Vladimir Nabokov, Dorothy Parker, Sylvia Plath, Jean-Paul Sartre, George Bernard Shaw, Robert Louis Stevenson, Anton Tchekhov, Leo Tolstoy, Evelyn Waugh, H. G. Wells, Oscar Wilde, P. G. Wodehouse, Virginia Woolf & W. B. Yeats
- & many others.
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The French Riviera: A History ranges from the Terra Amata in Nice, occupied from 380, 000 years ago & one of the oldest inhabited prehistoric sites in the world, through to settlement by Greeks, Romans, Franks, Ostrogoths & Visigoths, wars & revolutions, to the establishment of the Silicon Valley of France in Sophia-Antipolis in 1974. Michael Nelson shows the surprisingly cosmopolitan nature of the area in the early middle ages, such as the story of the finishing school run by Frankish kings in the 7th century where Siagrius, the ruler of the region, had studied & where the son of King Edwin of Northumbria in England was also sent. The Riviera was part of Provence in France for much of its history & was often a microcosm of France itself, with many dynastic struggles & horrific blood-letting. Colour maps & plates illustrate The French Riviera: A History, & it is also full of fascinating anecdotes. Examples include the loan of a guillotine by Nice to Grasse in the French Revolution (Nice had no victims & Grasse had thirty) & the occasion when Jean Moulin, the leader of the French Resistance in World War II, invited the Germans to the opening of an art gallery in Nice which he was using as a front. In the nineteenth & twentieth century the British & Americans led tourism, & the Riviera was described by Somerset Maugham as `a sunny place for shady people`. The French Riviera: A History is a fascinating look back over the Riviera`s rich history. Perfect to dip into, or follow the whole historical journey in one sitting, it will make the perfect addition to any history buff`s bookcase. ...

Secret tribunals, illegal rendition, torture, trumped up charges...all in a society controlled by fear. Such was the tenor of life in Languedoc around the year 1300. The dungeons housed hundreds of despairing innocents. The charge
- heresy. Nearly a century had passed since Languedoc had been put to the sword in the Albigensian Crusade, but the stain of Catharism still lay on the l&. Any accusation of Catharism invited peril. But repression bred resentment & it was in Carcassonne that resistance began to stir. In 1300 a great orator emerged who brought together the currents of resistance. Three years later the terrible prisons were stormed & the inmates set free. The orator was a Franciscan friar, Bernard Delicieux. The forces ranged against Delicieux included the ruthless Pope Boniface VII, the Machiavellian French King Philip IV & the grand inquisitor of Toulouse Bernard Gui (the villain of ” The Name of the Rose”). This magnificent book, which forms a kind of sequel to Stephen O` Shea`s bestselling ” The Perfect Heresy”, tells his inspiring life & tragic story.
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Tibet was not just on the horizon, it capped it. Four thousand metres above this city was a country of stone & ice, &, even though it was officially closed, there was still a way in. This is a compelling & unforgettable encounter on the roof of the world... Hoping to reach Tibet after a twenty-year obsession, Charlie Carroll travelled to China. Contending with Chinese bureaucracy, unforgiving terrain & sickness-inducing altitude, Charlie experienced twenty-first-century Tibet in all its heartbreaking beauty. Tibetan-born Lobsang fled the volatile region over the Himalayas, on foot, as a child in 1989. An exile in Nepal, then a student in India, he was called back to Tibet by love. At the end of the road known as the Friendship Highway, he met Charlie & recounted his extraordinary life story, exemplifying the hardship, resilience & hope of modern Tibetan life. ...

Friedrich Engels is one of the most attractive & contradictory figures of the nineteenth century. Born to a prosperous mercantile family in west Germany, he spent his career working in the Manchester cotton industry, riding to the Cheshire hounds, & enjoying the comfortable, middle-class life of a Victorian gentleman. Yet Engels was also the co-founder of international communism
- the philosophy which in the 20th century came to control one third of the human race. He was the co-author of ” The Communist Manifesto”, a ruthless party tactician, & the man who sacrificed his best years so Karl Marx could write ” Das Kapital”. Tristram Hunt relishes the diversity & exuberance of Engels` era: how one of the great bon viveurs of Victorian Britain reconciled his raucous personal life with this uncompromising political philosophy.
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Early Readers are stepping stones from picture books to reading books. A blue Early Reader is perfect for sharing & reading together. A red Early Reader is the next step on your reading journey. When she loses her beautiful golden ball at the bottom of the fountain, the princess is very upset. Then an ugly frog offers to help
- for a kiss. Yuck! What will the princess decide?
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On 9 April 2010, Dave Crisp found 21 coins while metal detecting on farmland near Frome. Two days later, he returned to the site & discovered a huge pot filled with more coins. Archaeologists believe the hoard will rewrite the history books. One of the most important aspects of the hoard is that it contains a large group of coins of Carausius, who ruled Britain independently from AD 286 to AD 293 & who was the first Roman emperor ever to strike coins in Britain. The hoard contains more than 760 of his coins, making it the largest group ever found. Among these coins are five rare examples of his silver denarii, the only coins of their type being struck anywhere in the Roman Empire at the time. This accessible book is written by experts from the British Museum & the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Packed with photography of the coins as well as images of the hoard in situ, this book will shed new light on 3rd-century Roman Britain. ” This find presents us with an opportunity to put Carausius on the map. School children across the country have been studying Roman Britain for decades, but are never taught about Carausius
- our lost British emperor.” (Roger Bland).
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The Northwest Passage proved so elusive for so long that many sailors & explorers believed it didn`t actually exist. A sea route connecting the Atlantic & Pacific Oceans through the Arctic archipelago, it wasn`t until Roald Amundsen`s 1903-06 voyage that the Northwest Passage`s existence was finally proved, but the transit is treacherous & entirely dependent upon the ice giving up its grip for sufficient time to allow vessels through. This is not a journey undertaken by average sailors in small boats. But David Scott Cowper, 74, is no ordinary sailor. There are seven possible routes through the Northwest Passage, & Cowper had sailed through four of them singlehanded. This is the account of the fifth & most northerly
- from ocean to ocean through the Mc Clure Strait
- & the sixth, the return voyage, both times accompanied by Jane Maufe as his crew. The account of the voyage is written by Jane & she captures Cowper`s steely determination, resourcefulness in the face of adversity & humility in the wake of great achievement. Theirs is an old-fashioned relationship, where each party expects to fulfil their stereotypical roles. But Jane is no push-over
- she can steer a watch, haul large diesel cans, & leap ashore slippery pontoons with heavy ropes like the best of them. As well as a captivating story of adventurous voyaging it provides a fascinating insight into the relationship between two serious & dedicated sailors, alone together in some of the most isolated & forbidding desolate wastes on earth. It is a relationship built on respect & high expectations, mutual ambition & also self-sacrifice; the book is a uniquely revealing & charming account.


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