Stefan Zweig Marie-Antoinette Vilipendée par les uns, sanctifiée par les autres, l'« Autrichienne » Marie-Antoinette est la reine la plus méconnue de l'histoire de France. Il fallut attendre Stefan Zweig, en 1933, pour que la passion cède à la vérité.
S'appuyant sur les archives de l'Empire autrichien et sur la correspondance du comte Axel de Fersen, qu'il fut le premier à pouvoir consulter intégralement, Stefan Zweig retrace avec sensibilité et rigueur l'évolution de la jeune princesse, trop tôt appelée au trône, que la faiblesse et l'impuissance temporaire de Louis XVI vont précipiter dans un tourbillon de distractions et de fêtes.
Dans ce contexte, la sombre affaire du collier, habilement exploitée par ses nombreux ennemis à la cour de France, va inexorablement éloigner Marie-Antoinette de son peuple.
Tracé avec humanité et pénétration, ce portrait est assurément un des chefs-d'oeuvre de la biographie classique, où excella l'auteur de Trois poètes de leur vie et de Vingt-quatre heures de la vie d'une femme.
Lire la suite Fermer

The Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending takes us on a rich, witty tour of Belle Epoque Paris, via the life story of the pioneering surgeon Samuel Pozzi. **SHORTLISTED FOR THE DUFF COOPER PRIZE 2019** In the summer of 1885, three Frenchmen arrived in London for a few days'' shopping. One was a Prince, one was a Count, and the third was a commoner with an Italian name, who four years earlier had been the subject of one of John Singer Sargent''s greatest portraits. The commoner was Samuel Pozzi, society doctor, pioneer gynaecologist and free-thinker - a rational and scientific man with a famously complicated private life. Pozzi''s life played out against the backdrop of the Parisian Belle Epoque. The beautiful age of glamour and pleasure more often showed its ugly side: hysterical, narcissistic, decadent and violent, a time of rampant prejudice and blood-and-soil nativism, with more parallels to our own age than we might imagine. The Man in the Red Coat is at once a fresh and original portrait of the Belle Epoque - its heroes and villains, its writers, artists and thinkers - and a life of a man ahead of his time. Witty, surprising and deeply researched, the new book from Julian Barnes illuminates the fruitful and longstanding exchange of ideas between Britain and France, and makes a compelling case for keeping that exchange alive. ''An absolute tonic for grey winter days'' Evening Standard
Lire la suite Fermer

Nouvelle édition brochée : pour cette biographie en anglais d'un grand homme d'État français des temps modernes. En six semaines au début de l'été 1940, la France est submergée par les troupes allemandes et se rend rapidement. Le gouvernement français du maréchal Pétain a intenté un procès en faveur de la paix et signé un armistice. Un jeune général français peu connu, refusant d'accepter la défaite, s'est rendu en Angleterre. Le 18 juin, il a parlé à ses compatriotes à propos de la BBC, les exhortant à se rassembler à Londres. "Quoi qu'il arrive, la flamme de la résistance française ne doit pas être éteinte et ne l'éteindra pas." À ce moment, Charles de Gaulle est entré dans l'histoire. De Gaulle mordit fréquemment la main qui le nourrissait pendant le reste de la guerre. Il insista pour être traité comme la véritable incarnation de la France et se brouilla violemment avec Churchill et Roosevelt. Il était piquant, têtu, distant et autonome.
Lire la suite Fermer

This title presents a new life of this legendary French queen by historian Antonia Fraser.

'I loved every word' - Sarra Manning, Red '[A] blissful book - it's like basking in the warm Med' - Rachel Johnson, Mail on Sunday The Riviera Set is the story of the group of people who lived, partied, bed-hopped and politicked at the Château de l'Horizon near Cannes, over the course of forty years from the time when Coco Chanel made southern French tans fashionable in the twenties to the death of the playboy Prince Aly Khan in 1960. At the heart of this was the amazing Maxine Elliott, the daughter of a fisherman from Connecticut, who built the beautiful art deco Château and brought together the likes of Noel Coward, the Aga Khan, the Windsors and two very saucy courtesans, Doris Castlerosse and Daisy Fellowes, who set out to be dangerous distractions to Winston Churchill as he worked on his journalism and biographies during his 'wilderness years' in the thirties. After the War the story continued as the Château changed hands and Prince Aly Khan used it to entertain the Hollywood set, as well as launch his seduction of and eventual marriage to Rita Hayworth. 'Lovell dissects their lives and curates the interesting parts, bringing together the creme of high society. A sparkling group biography that brings to life a bygone era' - The Lady
Lire la suite Fermer

'Rich and funny' Julian Barnes, Guardian 'Poirier's hugely enjoyable, quick-witted and richly anecdotal book is magnifique ' The Times A captivating portrait of those who lived, loved, fought, played and flourished in Paris between 1940 and 1950 and whose intellectual and artistic output still influences us today.

After the horrors of the Second World War, Paris was the place where the world's most original voices of the time came - among them Norman Mailer, Miles Davis, Simone de Beauvoir, James Baldwin, Juliette Greco, Alberto Giacometti, Saul Bellow and Arthur Koestler. Fuelled by the elation of the Liberation, these pioneers hoped to find an alternative to the Capitalist and Communist models for life, art and politics - a Third Way.

Agnes Poirier transports us to a time when Paris was at the heart of all that was new and brave and controversial, skilfully weaving together a collage of images and destinies.
Lire la suite Fermer

Des rois Capétiens aux présidents de la Ve république, des anonymes ayant réalisé les premières peintures rupestres aux intellectuels et artistes contemporains médiatisés, Cecil Jenkins, déjà auteur de "France : Peoples, History and Culture" propose ici une nouvelle Histoire accessible de la France entre art, politique et grands événements populaires.

WINNER OF THE GRAND PRIX DU LIVRE D'IDeES The French: serious and frivolous, charming and infuriating, rational and mystical, pessimistic, pleasure-loving - and perhaps more than any other people, intellectual. This original and entertaining book shows exactly what makes the French so ... French.

In the vineyards, wine caves, and cellars of France as war and occupation came to the country winemakers acted heroically not only to save the best wines but to defend their way of life. This title presents the true stories of vignerons who sheltered Jewish refugees in their cellars and of winemakers who risked their lives to aid the resistance.

Louis XIV was during his reign the most powerful king in Europe. He presided over a golden age of military and artistic achievement in France, and deployed his charm and talents for spin and intrigue to hold his court and country within his absolute control. The Sun King's universe centred at Versailles, a glittering palace from whence Louis conducted his government and complex love affairs. Nancy Mitford describes the daily life of this splendid court in sumptuous detail, bringing the distant past to vibrant life.

La biographie la plus complète et la plus à jour en anglais sur le Louis XIV. L'auteur Philippe Mansel s'appuie sur les dernières recherches en France, en Grande-Bretagne et aux Etats-Unis sur le Roi Soleil et porte une attention particulière à la culture de la cour, sur laquelle il est un expert reconnu. Il réalise ainsi un portrait précis d'un homme qui, trois cents ans après sa mort, incarne encore l'idée du grand monarque.

The three superstars of turn-of-the-century Parisian high society were Geneviève Halévy Bizet Straus; Laure de Sade, Comtesse Adhéaume de Chevigné; and Élisabeth de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay, Comtesse Greffulhe. All unhappily married, these women sought fulfillment by reinventing themselves as icons, and their fabled salons inspired generations of artists, composers, and writers.

'For his final book, the late Norwich tackled the dauntingly vast subject of two millennia of French history with admirable lightness and urbanity . . . his comic footnotes deserve a review of their own' DAILY TELEGRAPH I can still feel, as if it were yesterday, the excitement of my first Channel crossing (as a child of nearly 7) in September 1936; the regiment of porters, smelling asphyxiatingly of garlic in their blue-green blousons; the raucous sound all around me of spoken French; the immense fields of Normandy strangely devoid of hedges; then the Gare du Nord at twilight, the policemen with their kepis and their little snow-white batons; and my first sight of the Eiffel Tower . . . This book is written in the belief that the average English-speaking man or woman has remarkably little knowledge of French history. We may know a bit about Napoleon or Joan of Arc or Louis XIV, but for most of us that's about it. In my own three schools we were taught only about the battles we won: Crecy and Poitiers, Agincourt and Waterloo. The rest was silence. So here is my attempt to fill in the blanks . . . John Julius Norwich's last book is the book he always wanted to write: the extremely colourful story of the country he loves best. From frowning Roman generals and belligerent Gallic chieftains, to Charlemagne (hated by generations of French children taught that he invented schools) through Marie Antoinette and the storming of the Bastille to Vichy, the Resistance and beyond, FRANCE is packed with heroes and villains, adventures and battles, romance and revolution. Full of memorable stories and racy anecdotes, this is the perfect introduction to the country that has inspired the rest of the world to live, dress, eat -- and love better.
Lire la suite Fermer

Recreating the ups and downs in the history of Paris and its inhabitants, this book seeks to give a sense of the city as it was lived in and experienced over time. It is intended for habitual Paris obsessives, for first-time visitors, and for those who know the city only by repute.

A magisterial, sweeping biography of one of the great leaders of the 20th century -- General Charles De Gaulle