Palaces of Reason

Palaces of Reason
Author: Robin L. Thomas
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2023-11-09
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 0271096608

Palaces of Reason traces the fascinating history of three royal residences built outside of Naples in the eighteenth century at Capodimonte, Portici, and Caserta. Commissioned by King Charles of Bourbon and Queen Maria Amalia of Saxony, who reigned over the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, these buildings were far more than residences for the monarchs. They were designed to help reshape the economic and cultural fortunes of the realm. The palaces at Capodimonte, Portici, and Caserta are among the most complex architectural commissions of the eighteenth century. Considering the architecture and decoration of these complexes within their political, cultural, and economic contexts, Robin L. Thomas argues that Enlightenment ideas spurred their construction and influenced their decoration. These modes of thinking saw the palaces as more than just centers of royal pleasure or muscular assertions of the crown’s power. Indeed, writers and royal ministers viewed them as active agents in improving the cultural, political, social, and economic health of the kingdom. By casting the palaces within this narrative, Thomas counters the assumption that they were imitations of Versailles and the swan songs of absolutism, while expanding our understanding of the eighteenth-century European palace more broadly. Original and convincing, Thomas’s book will be of interest to historians of art and architectural history and eighteenth-century studies.

Evening in the Palace of Reason

Evening in the Palace of Reason
Author: James Gaines
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2005
Genre: History
ISBN: 0007153937

Tells the story of the history-making meeting between scorned master composer Johann Sebastian Bach and Prussia's Frederick the Great.

Palaces for the People

Palaces for the People
Author: Eric Klinenberg
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2018-09-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1524761184

“A comprehensive, entertaining, and compelling argument for how rebuilding social infrastructure can help heal divisions in our society and move us forward.”—Jon Stewart NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • “Engaging.”—Mayor Pete Buttigieg, The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) We are living in a time of deep divisions. Americans are sorting themselves along racial, religious, and cultural lines, leading to a level of polarization that the country hasn’t seen since the Civil War. Pundits and politicians are calling for us to come together and find common purpose. But how, exactly, can this be done? In Palaces for the People, Eric Klinenberg suggests a way forward. He believes that the future of democratic societies rests not simply on shared values but on shared spaces: the libraries, childcare centers, churches, and parks where crucial connections are formed. Interweaving his own research with examples from around the globe, Klinenberg shows how “social infrastructure” is helping to solve some of our most pressing societal challenges. Richly reported and ultimately uplifting, Palaces for the People offers a blueprint for bridging our seemingly unbridgeable divides. LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN NONFICTION “Just brilliant!”—Roman Mars, 99% Invisible “The aim of this sweeping work is to popularize the notion of ‘social infrastructure'—the ‘physical places and organizations that shape the way people interact'. . . . Here, drawing on research in urban planning, behavioral economics, and environmental psychology, as well as on his own fieldwork from around the world, [Eric Klinenberg] posits that a community’s resilience correlates strongly with the robustness of its social infrastructure. The numerous case studies add up to a plea for more investment in the spaces and institutions (parks, libraries, childcare centers) that foster mutual support in civic life.”—The New Yorker “Palaces for the People—the title is taken from the Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie’s description of the hundreds of libraries he funded—is essentially a calm, lucid exposition of a centuries-old idea, which is really a furious call to action.”—New Statesman “Clear-eyed . . . fascinating.”—Psychology Today

Palace of Spies

Palace of Spies
Author: Sarah Zettel
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2013
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0544074114

Peggy Fitzroy is clever enough to fake her way into King George's court in London, but is she clever enough to survive in his Palace of Spies?

The City of Palaces

The City of Palaces
Author: Michael Nava
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2014-04-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0299299139

Presents the story of Miguel Sarmiento, a doctor, his aristocratic wife, and young son as they are caught up the Mexican Revolution and the political upheavals and chaos that follows the collapse of the old order.

Palaces in the Night

Palaces in the Night
Author: Margaret F. MacDonald
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 172
Release: 2001
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780520230491

In "Palaces in the Night", MacDonald looks at a key period in James Whistler's career, examining his unique vision of Venice and his development of the medium of etching. 120 illustrations.

Circle of Enemies

Circle of Enemies
Author: Harry Connolly
Publisher: Del Rey
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2011-08-30
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0345529251

Former car thief Ray Lilly is now the expendable grunt of a sorcerer responsible for destroying extradimensional predators summoned to our world by power-hungry magicians. Luckily, Ray has some magic of his own, and so far it’s kept him alive. But when a friend from his former gang calls him back to his old stomping grounds in Los Angeles, Ray may have to face a threat even he can’t handle. A mysterious spell is killing Ray’s former associates, and they blame him. Worse yet, the spell was cast by Wally King, the sorcerer who first dragged Ray into the brutal world of the Twenty Palace Society. Now Ray will have to choose between the ties of the past and the responsibilities of the present, as he and the Society face not only Wally King but a bizarre new predator.

The Palace Papers

The Palace Papers
Author: Tina Brown
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 537
Release: 2022-04-26
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0593138104

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “addictively readable” (The Washington Post) inside story of the British royal family’s battle to overcome the dramas of the Diana years—only to confront new, twenty-first-century crises “Frothy and forthright, a kind of Keeping Up with the Windsors with sprinkles of Keats.”—The New York Times (Notable Book of the Year) ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Elle, Town & Country “Never again” became Queen Elizabeth II’s mantra shortly after Princess Diana’s tragic death. More specif­ically, there could never be “another Diana”—a mem­ber of the family whose global popularity upstaged, outshone, and posed an existential threat to the Brit­ish monarchy. Picking up where Tina Brown’s masterful The Diana Chronicles left off, The Palace Papers reveals how the royal family reinvented itself after the trau­matic years when Diana’s blazing celebrity ripped through the House of Windsor like a comet. Brown takes readers on a tour de force journey through the scandals, love affairs, power plays, and betrayals that have buffeted the monarchy over the last twenty-five years. We see the Queen’s stoic re­solve after the passing of Princess Margaret, the Queen Mother, and Prince Philip, her partner for seven decades, and how she triumphs in her Jubilee years even as family troubles rage around her. Brown explores Prince Charles’s determination to make Camilla Parker Bowles his wife, the tension between William and Harry on “different paths,” the ascend­ance of Kate Middleton, the downfall of Prince An­drew, and Harry and Meghan’s stunning decision to step back as senior royals. Despite the fragile monar­chy’s best efforts, “never again” seems fast approaching. Tina Brown has been observing and chronicling the British monarchy for three decades, and her sweeping account is full of powerful revelations, newly reported details, and searing insight gleaned from remarkable access to royal insiders. Stylish, witty, and erudite, The Palace Papers will irrevoca­bly change how the world perceives and under­stands the royal family.

The Memory Palace

The Memory Palace
Author: Edward Hollis
Publisher: Catapult
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2015-07-28
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1619025620

A brilliant, ambitious follow–up to The Secret Lives of Buildings, in which Hollis turns his focus from the great architectural constructions of the past to the now–vanished chambers they once contained. The rooms we live in are always more than just four walls. As we decorate these spaces and fill them with objects and friends, they shape our lives and become the backdrop to our sense of self. one day, the structures will be gone, but even then, traces of the stories and the memories they contained will persist. In this dazzling work of imaginative reconstruction, edward Hollis takes us to the sites of great abodes now lost to history and piecing together the fragments that remain, re–creates their vanished chambers. From Rome's palatine to the old palace of Westminster and the petit Trianon at Versailles, from the sets of MGM studios in Hollywood to the pavilions of the Crystal palace and the author's own grandmother's sitting room, The Memory Palace is a glittering treasure trove of luminous forgotten places and the alluring people who lived in them.

Child of Fire

Child of Fire
Author: Harry Connolly
Publisher: Del Rey
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2009-09-29
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0345514955

Ray Lilly is living on borrowed time. He’s the driver for Annalise Powliss, a high-ranking member of the Twenty Palace Society, a group of sorcerers devoted to hunting down and executing rogue magicians. But because Ray betrayed her once, Annalise is looking for an excuse to kill him–or let someone else do the job. Unfortunately for both of them, Annalise’s next mission goes wrong, leaving her critically injured. With the little magic he controls, Ray must complete her assignment alone. Not only does he have to stop a sorcerer who’s sacrificing dozens of innocent lives in exchange for supernatural power, he must find–and destroy–the source of that inhuman magic. BONUS: This edition contains excerpts from Harry Connolly's Game of Cages and Twenty Palaces.