Norwich was the host of the BBC radio panel game My Word! from 1978 to 1982. He wrote and presented more than 30 television documentaries including Maestro, The Fall of Constantinople, Napoleon's Hundred Days, Cortés and Montezuma, Maximilian of Mexico, The Knights of Malta, The Treasure Houses of Britain, and The Death of the Prince Imperial in the Zulu War. Other interviews on France and the Second World War include our interview on the French Resistance by Jonathan Fenby and Carmen Callil looks at ‘ The Other France’, focusing more on the story of the Vichy years and the cultural and political dynamics that made them possible. Richard Vinen looks at social and political trends in the country over the century 1870-1970.

The big question in the book is whether the Enlightenment period meant the same for different genders, social classes and Europeans vs non-Europeans. Fig. 4. Jules Michelet, Histoire de France (Paris: Hetzel, 1869), 5 vols.,vol. 1. frontispiece. Library of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey. Introduction Dorinda studied the period as a global phenomenon that touched on how historical interpretations of the Enlightenment continue to transform in response to contemporary socio-economic trends. greatest legend of our time is soon to come. It is seen in a frightful seed sprouting around 1360, sublime, charming, touching, and which flourishes in 1430 (third and fifth volumes).odd thing is that the only person with enough love to recreate, to remake the Church’s inner world, is the one whom she did not raise at all, who never entered into communion with her, who had no faith other than in humanity itself, no imposed creed, nothing but a free mind. incredible energy, that little book [ Introduction to World History] was carried forward in rapid flight on two wings at once (as always with me): Nature and Spirit, two interpretations of the vast general movement. My method was already in it. I said there in 1830 what I said (in The Witch [1862]) about Satan, the weird name of still youthful freedom, combative at first, and negative, but later creative and increasingly fruitful. I am not Caesar, but how often have I dreamed Caesar’s dream! I saw them weeping, I understood their tears. “ Urbem orant.” They want their city! And I, a poor solitary dreamer, what could I give to that great silent nation? All that I had—my voice. May it be their first admission into the City of Right, from which they have been excluded until now! an “artist-historian,” Michelet repeatedly asserts his ambition to resurrect the integral life of the past. Armed with imaginative empathy, his task resembles the descent of Aeneas into the underworld. Like the historian, the Roman carried a golden bough which allowed him to enter and return unharmed from the realm of the dead. Michelet’s golden bough was his self-knowledge as a writer with the imaginative power to revive the silenced voices he studies.

As they sniff out death very well, those moments when the wounded soul might weaken, one of them, (...)Clare Crowston uses old evidence with visual images, technical literature, philosophical treatises, and fashion journals. She intentionally challenges existing ideas about women’s work and family in early modern Europe.

Clare observes the social institution of the seamstresses’ guild in France from the time of Louis XIV to the Revolution. In the book, she raises concerns about the need to increase women’s economic, social, and legal opportunities. the second volume, having produced a king-priest, a king-abbot, having made a canon of her eldest son, the king of France, the Church is seen crushing her enemies (1200), smothering the free Spirit, bringing about no moral reform. Finally, eclipsed, overtaken by Saint Louis, the Church is (before 1300) subordinated, dominated by the State. Much of the book is located in Provence and The Horseman on the Roofhas since been transformed into a movie starring Juliette Binoche. The original book was published in the 1950s and follows the story of a young Italian nobleman who is residing in France and is trying to raise money for the Italian revolution against Austria in the mid-1800s. The Three Musketeers– by Alexandre Dumas I loved the title of this book so much that I had to add it to this list of great books about France. And when it comes to the content this non-fiction book contains? Well, for starters, Jean-Benoît and I have the same last name! Written by two Canadians, the book is a fun and incrediblybrief introduction to French culture, and will definitely leave you wanting more (or maybe to even visit the country for yourself!) How to be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits –by Caroline de Maigret, Anne Berest, Sophie Mas, Audrey Diwan A History of France is a concise, fast-paced yet insightful overview of the history of France by John Julius Norwich. Described as a “true master of narrative history”, Norwich proves once again why he truly deserves the title. “A History of France” is sadly his last work: Lord Norwich died in June at the age of 88.Having said that, Norwich's book is for the general public, not for the historians. It is to be read as a general history book but not as an historical document. The author deserves full credit for his efforts in simplifying the French history (especially the French revolution and history of the Second & Third Republic). Above all, the book is written by someone who loves France. The author attributes his love of France to childhood travels and to his early life in France and the book reflects that passion. This book is a sort of ‘thank-offering to France’ for all the happiness that glorious country has given him over the years. yet, today, having passed through so many years, ages, different worlds, as I reread this book and see its failings quite clearly, I say:

Norwich’s strength is the colorful anecdote . . . [and A History of France is] informative and entertaining.”— Publishers Weekly Praise for Four Princes: Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V, Suleiman the Magnificent and the Obsessions that Forged Modern Europe During that period, leading French intellectuals and political figures prioritized perfect national unity and looked for ways to bequeath all French people with the same language, laws, customs, and values.

CHAPTER III.

I do not want to anticipate here. In only one or two words I can say: It is this book, “this book (...) kept my distance from the majestic, sterile Doctrinaires, and from the great Romantic flood of “art for art’s sake.” I had my world within myself. I held my life within myself, as well as my renewals and my fecundity; but also my dangers. Which? My heart, my youth, my very method, and the new demand made of history: no longer just to recount or judge, but to summon, remake, revive the ages. To have enough passionate flame to reheat ashes long cold–that was the first point, and it was not without peril. But the second point, still more perilous perhaps, was to enter into an intimate relationship with the revived dead, and who knows? finally become one of them. again I am compelled to state it: I was alone. There hardly existed anything other than political history, government decrees and records, to a slight extent those of institutions. No one took into account that which accompanies, explains, and in part establishes that political history—social, economic, industrial conditions, those of literature and of ideas.