Vive la Revolution

Vive la Revolution
Author: Mark Steel
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2003
Genre: France
ISBN: 0743208056

For most of us, the French Revolution has been reduced to jokes about Marie-Antoinette, guillotines and the Scarlet Pimpernel. But for Mark Steel, bestselling author of REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL, the French Revolution was one of the most inspirational moments in human history - a moment when ordinary people changed the world and became extraordinary. It deserves better jokes than that. In this revolutionary new book, Steel banishes stuffiness from history, telling us what happened in France between the storming of the Bastille and the rise of Napoleon, bringing to life the people who made them happen. His account is dominated by bizarre events and splendid characters, from the famously odd Robespierre, Danton and Thomas Paine, to the less well known Drouet, the local postman who arrested the fleeing King because he recognised him as the man off of the money. VIVE LA REVOLUTION is an uproariously serious work of history - brilliantly funny and insightful, it puts the peculiarity of individual people back at the centre of the story.

Sky Without Stars

Sky Without Stars
Author: Jessica Brody
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 608
Release: 2020-02-25
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1534410643

“Not to be missed!” —Marissa Meyer, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lunar Chronicles “An explosion of emotion, intrigue, romance, and revolution.” —Stephanie Garber, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Caraval series In the tradition of The Lunar Chronicles, this sweeping reimagining of Les Misérables tells the story of three teens from very different backgrounds who are thrown together amidst the looming threat of revolution on the French planet of Laterre. A thief. An officer. A guardian. Three strangers, one shared destiny… When the Last Days came, the planet of Laterre promised hope. A new life for a wealthy French family and their descendants. But five hundred years later, it’s now a place where an extravagant elite class reigns supreme; where the clouds hide the stars and the poor starve in the streets; where a rebel group, long thought dead, is resurfacing. Whispers of revolution have begun—a revolution that hinges on three unlikely heroes… Chatine is a street-savvy thief who will do anything to escape the brutal Regime, including spy on Marcellus, the grandson of the most powerful man on the planet. Marcellus is an officer—and the son of an infamous traitor. In training to take command of the military, Marcellus begins to doubt the government he’s vowed to serve when his father dies and leaves behind a cryptic message that only one person can read: a girl named Alouette. Alouette is living in an underground refuge, where she guards and protects the last surviving library on the planet. But a shocking murder will bring Alouette to the surface for the first time in twelve years…and plunge Laterre into chaos. All three have a role to play in a dangerous game of revolution—and together they will shape the future of a planet.

Vive la Révolution!

Vive la Révolution!
Author: Eric Maurin
Publisher:
Total Pages: 44
Release: 2004
Genre: Academic achievement
ISBN: 9780753018453

"The famous events of May 1968, starting with student riots, threw France into a state of turmoil. The period of 'revolution' coincided with the time in which important examinations are undertaken. Normal procedures were abandoned and the pass-rate for various qualifications increased enormously. These events were particularly important for students at an early (and highly selective) phase of higher education. They are shown to have pursued further years of education because thresholds were lowered at critical stages. These historic events provide a natural experiment to analyse the returns to years of higher education for the affected generation and to consider consequences for their children. Thus, we contribute to debate on two very controversial questions: What is the true causal relationship between educational attainment and its labour market value? Is there a causal relationship between the education of parents and that of their children? Unlike most of the literature, we consider the effect of an intervention which alters an individual's years of higher education rather than compulsory schooling. The results show a relatively high return, which might indicate that private returns are higher for the former. Furthermore, the treatment group is on the margin of the higher education system. This study suggests that expanding the university system to accommodate such people can yield very high private returns. Hence our study suggests very positive effects of the '1968 events' for affected cohorts and is of contemporary relevance given the current debate in many countries about widening access to higher education"--Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit web site.

Viva la Revolucion

Viva la Revolucion
Author: Eric Hobsbawm
Publisher: Abacus
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018-09-06
Genre: Latin America
ISBN: 9780349141299

Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012) wrote that Latin America was the only region of the world outside Europe which he felt he knew well and where he felt entirely at home. He claimed this was because it was the only part of the Third World whose two principal languages, Spanish and Portuguese, were within his reach. But he was also, of course, attracted by the potential for social revolution in Latin America. After the triumph of Fidel Castro in Cuba in January 1959, and even more after the defeat of the American attempt to overthrow him at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961, 'there was not an intellectual in Europe or the USA', he wrote, 'who was not under the spell of Latin America, a continent apparently bubbling with the lava of social revolutions'. 'The Third World brought the hope of revolution back to the First in the 1960s'. The two great international inspirations were Cuba and Vietnam, 'triumphs not only of revolution, but of Davids against Goliaths, of the weak against the all-powerful'.

The Wind From the East

The Wind From the East
Author: Richard Wolin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 442
Release: 2017-11-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691178232

How Maoism captured the imagination of French intellectuals during the 1960s Michel Foucault, Jean-Paul Sartre, Julia Kristeva, Phillipe Sollers, and Jean-Luc Godard. During the 1960s, a who’s who of French thinkers, writers, and artists, spurred by China’s Cultural Revolution, were seized with a fascination for Maoism. Combining a merciless exposé of left-wing political folly and cross-cultural misunderstanding with a spirited defense of the 1960s, The Wind from the East tells the colorful story of this legendary period in France. Richard Wolin shows how French students and intellectuals, inspired by their perceptions of the Cultural Revolution, and motivated by utopian hopes, incited grassroots social movements and reinvigorated French civic and cultural life. Wolin’s riveting narrative reveals that Maoism’s allure among France’s best and brightest actually had little to do with a real understanding of Chinese politics. Instead, it paradoxically served as a vehicle for an emancipatory transformation of French society. Recounting the cultural and political odyssey of French students and intellectuals in the 1960s, The Wind from the East illustrates how the Maoist phenomenon unexpectedly sparked a democratic political sea change in France.

When the King Took Flight

When the King Took Flight
Author: Timothy Tackett
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2004-10-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674044207

On a June night in 1791, King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette fled Paris in disguise, hoping to escape the mounting turmoil of the French Revolution. They were arrested by a small group of citizens a few miles from the Belgian border and forced to return to Paris. Two years later they would both die at the guillotine. It is this extraordinary story, and the events leading up to and away from it, that Tackett recounts in gripping novelistic style. The king's flight opens a window to the whole of French society during the Revolution. Each dramatic chapter spotlights a different segment of the population, from the king and queen as they plotted and executed their flight, to the people of Varennes who apprehended the royal family, to the radicals of Paris who urged an end to monarchy, to the leaders of the National Assembly struggling to control a spiraling crisis, to the ordinary citizens stunned by their king's desertion. Tackett shows how Louis's flight reshaped popular attitudes toward kingship, intensified fears of invasion and conspiracy, and helped pave the way for the Reign of Terror. Tackett brings to life an array of unique characters as they struggle to confront the monumental transformations set in motion in 1789. In so doing, he offers an important new interpretation of the Revolution. By emphasizing the unpredictable and contingent character of this story, he underscores the power of a single event to change irrevocably the course of the French Revolution, and consequently the history of the world.

Fatal Purity

Fatal Purity
Author: Ruth Scurr
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 452
Release: 2007-04-17
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780805082616

Against the dramatic backdrop of the French Revolution, historian Scurr tracks Robespierre's evolution from lawyer to revolutionary leader. This is a fascinating portrait of a man who identified with the Revolution to the point of madness, and in so doing changed the course of history.