Showing titles in France

As one of the seminal social revolutions in human history, the French Revolution holds a unique legacy, especially in the West. The early years of the Revolution were fueled by Enlightenment ideals, seeking the social overthrow of the caste system that gave the royalty and aristocracy decisive advantages over the lower classes.

Le Paris historique et artistique des frères Goncourt : De 1851 à 1896, les Goncourt ont consigné dans des milliers de pages, leurs rencontres, leurs conversations et leurs voyages. Observateurs impitoyables, ils ont croqué leurs contemporains - artistes, journalistes, banquiers, femmes du monde, prostituées, directeurs de théâtre, collectionneurs - avec un sens de la dérision et du cynisme.

La Guerre de Cent Ans est un conflit, entrecoupé de trêves plus ou moins longues, opposant de 1337 à 1453 la dynastie des Plantagenêts à celle des Valois, et à travers elles le royaume d'Angleterre et celui de France.

Dans une évocation gorgée de couleurs fortes et de furieuses sonorités, Philippe de Villiers fait revivre Clovis et lui donne la parole. Le roi fondateur dévoile les épisodes les plus intimes, les plus secrets, de ses enfances, de ses amours, de ses chevauchées. Ce livre audio éclaire d'un jour nouveau le mystère de sa conversion, rétablit la vérité sur la date de son baptême.

Except for the two world wars, the Tour has been run annually since that 1903 race, and yearly addendums seem the best way to keep telling the story. So please join us as we go on the 108th trip around La Belle France.

Tiré de l’ouvrage "Simple récits de l'histoire de France" du pédagogue Gustave Ducoudray, cette "Histoire de France" est conçue comme un manuel destiné aux néophytes. Ce quatrième volume traite de Louis XIII et Richelieu, Louis XIV et ses ministres, ainsi que de Louis XV.

They broke into a bank by crawling through sewage—and emerged as legends. In 1976, under the glamorous streets of Nice, France, a group of thieves pulled off a bank robbery that defied logic and stunned the world. Led by the enigmatic Albert Spaggiari, the gang spent months tunneling through sewers and solid rock to breach the Société Générale vault during a long holiday weekend. Once inside, they worked for nearly three days—stealing millions in cash, gold, and jewels from over 400 deposit boxes. They left without a trace, except a note: “Without weapons, nor hate, nor violence.”

In this audiobook, read by Paul Spera, each historical event is replaced into context and presented in clear and easy-to-read snippets, so that younger and older readers can deepen their understanding of how modern France came to be and broaden their culture. This historical essays deals with France's earlier kings, the hundred years' war, the struggle with Burgundy, the Italian wars, the wars of religion, absolute monarchy, and the French Revolution.

Notre Dame de Paris, in particular, is a curious specimen of this variety. Every surface, every stone of this venerable pile, is a page of the history not only of the country, but of science and of art. Thus - to mention here only a few of the chief details - whereas the small Porte Rouge almost touches the limits of 15th century Gothic delicacy, the pillars of the nave, by their massiveness and great girth, reach back to the Carlovingian Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

By the end of D-Day, June 6, 1944, the Allies had managed to successfully land 170,000 men, with over 75,000 on the British and Canadian beaches, 57,000 on the American beaches, and over 24,000 airborne troops. Thanks to Allied deception, the German army had failed to react to prevent the Allies from making the most of their landings. Just one division, the Hitlerjugend, would arrive the following day. Despite a fearsome and bloody day, the majority of the Allied forces had achieved their objectives.

De la femme malheureuse en amour à la reine de France : le plus grand succès biographique de Stefan Zweig. Traduction entièrement révisée par Olivier Mannoni, et préface de l'historien Antoine de Baecque, spécialiste du XVIIIe siècle.

Philippe Pétain est un sujet historique qui dépasse le personnage. Jean-Yves Le Naour, historien en spécialiste de la Première Guerre mondiale et du XXe siècle, nous présente ici la biographie du maréchal Pétain mais aussi une histoire du pétainisme. L’historien se penche sur le mythe Pétain forgé durant la Première Guerre mondiale, en tant que vainqueur de Verdun, l’enracinement du mythe durant l’Entre-deux guerres, pour aboutir au chef de l’État vénéré sous Vichy, de 1940 à 1944, quand le maréchal se pose en protecteur des Français tout en collaborant activement avec l’occupant.

Doctors at War tells the stories of physicians in France working to impede the German war effort and undermine French collaborators during the Occupation from 1940 to 1945. Determined to defeat the Third Reich's incursion, one group of prominent Paris doctors founded a medical network to treat injured Resistance fighters who they then secretly transported to Allied countries to avoid forced labor in Germany. Doctors at War stands as a dramatic, character-driven account of physicians' courage and resilience in the face of evil.

You may have heard of Lourdes, a town in France where millions of people go every year, either as a tourist to take pictures or see what the hype is all about, or real believers who think that the town has a sanctity to it and can somehow cure them, help them, or inspire them through divine means. Whatever the reason for the many visitors is, it is undeniably an interesting historical heritage, something worth exploring. To be precise, Lourdes is a small market town nestled in the Pyrenees' foothills.

It is difficult to overemphasize the importance of the Battle of Verdun. For the French, it possesses a grim significance which endures to this day - the churned, furrowed earth of the battlefield still visible a century later a stark reminder of waste of life, strategic failure and tactical inadequacy on a monumental scale. For the German people, had it not been eclipsed by the shame and horror of Nazism and the Holocaust, it would doubtless carry equal importance.

1950's Bordeaux. Even now, the Second World War is never far from people's memories, particularly in a city where the scars of collaboration and resistance are more keenly felt than ever. But another war has already begun. A war without a name, far away across the sea, in Algeria, where young men are sent to fight in a brutal conflict. Daniel knows what awaits him. He's heard stories. Patrols, ambushes, reprisals, massacres, mutilations, all beneath a burning North African sun.

Before America joined World War I, a small group of Americans volunteered for the French Foreign Legion to help defeat the Central Powers. Historian David Hanna profiles seven of these volunteers: a poet, an artist, a boxer, a stunt pilot, a college student, a veteran of the Spanish American War, and an advertising executive. All seven men were united in courage; and some, like poet Alan Seeger, paid the ultimate sacrifice.

With the SAS: Across the Rhine is the story of the latter part of Captain Ian Wellsted's military career with the Special Air Service. This is a very personal account, revealing the many emotional as well as physical strains placed upon men in the fighting line. The author takes us back to his time employed with the 79th armored Division (the famous "Hobart's Funnies") preparing for D-Day and his desire for more exciting action, which led first to the Parachute Regiment and then the SAS. 

Ernest Hemingway's literary ambitions took root in France in the 1920s among some of the most extravagantly creative artists of the twentieth century. Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and others were drawn to the left bank of the Seine in Paris after World War I. Hemingway joined them and, with the publication of his book The Sun Also Rises became one of the most powerful forces in the vortex of talent and experimentation.

France's most famous king, and Europe's longest serving, Louis XIV (1638-1715) is often viewed today as a symbol of royal extravagance and splendor. Reigning for over 72 years, the legacy of the "Sun King" is remembered for the magnificent Palace of Versailles, the patronizing of arts and theater, and the apocryphal quote "l'Etat c'est moi" (I am the State).