Voices Of France

Comprising 15 contributions, this volume explores the many expressions of French culture, from the effects of opinion polls on democracy and oral histories to the expression of specific socio- cultural groups in French society. Avenues of communication explored include self-expression or collectively shared myths and metaphors; visual, linguistic or textual media including women's filmmaking and the rise of hip-hop and ragga in France; and political participation and practice, ranging from discussions about homelessness to the re-creating of collective identities in urban France. Distributed by Books International. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This volume brings together literary and musical compositions of medieval France, identifying the use of voice in these works as a way of articulating gendered identities.

"From Publishers Weekly : This irresistible history of the French Revolution is much more than a colorful mosaic. By splicing a reflective narrative with graphics (engravings, satirical cartoons, photographs) and primary documentsletters, trial transcripts, memoirs, decrees, newspaper editorialsit brings vivid immediacy to tumultuous events without sacrificing objective distance. The main narrative consists of dozens of tableaux, allowing room for such topics as prison conditions, Freemasonry, feudalism, the market for luxury goods. Along with the expected profiles of Marie-Antoinette, Louis XVI, Robespierre and Marat, we meet scheming pretender Philippe of Orleans who tried to bring down the king, professional revolutionary Tom Paine imprisoned under the Terror, and unstable leftist Joseph Fouche who led a campaign of de-Christianization and later became Napoleon's police minister. The text is provocative in its discussion of the Jacobins' prototype welfare state and of the Terror as a response to foreign pressures."--via amazon.com (1988 HarperCollins ed.).

An innovative study revealing that folklore collections can shed new light on the lives of the socially marginalized.

When Gillian Tindall discovered a cache of tightly folded letters in a deserted house in central France, recently emptied of 150 years of a family's possessions, she uncovered the obscure and moving life of one woman, Celestine Chaumette. This is Tindall's brilliantly original recreation of the vanished world of a French village.

Voices in the Legal Archives in the French Colonial World: "The King is Listening" offers, through the contribution of thirteen original chapters, a sustained analysis of judicial practices and litigation during the first era of French overseas expansion. The overall goal of this volume is to elaborate a more sophisticated "social history of colonialism" by focusing largely on the eighteenth century, extending roughly from 1700 until the conclusion of the Age of Revolutions in the 1830s. By critically examining legal practices and litigation in the French colonial world, in both its Atlantic and Oceanic extensions, this volume of essays has sought to interrogate the naturalized equation between law and empire, an idea premised on the idea of law as a set of doctrines and codified procedures originating in the metropolis and then transmitted to the colonies. This book advances new approaches and methods in writing a history of the French empire, one which views state authority as more unstable and contested. Voices in the Legal Archives proposes to remedy the under-theorized state of France’s first colonial empire, as opposed to its post-1830 imperial expressions empire, which have garnered far more scholarly attention. This book will appeal to scholars of French history and the comparative history of European empires and colonialism.

Comprising 15 contributions, this volume explores the many expressions of French culture, from the effects of opinion polls on democracy and oral histories to the expression of specific socio- cultural groups in French society. Avenues of communication explored include self-expression or collectively shared myths and metaphors; visual, linguistic or textual media including women's filmmaking and the rise of hip-hop and ragga in France; and political participation and practice, ranging from discussions about homelessness to the re-creating of collective identities in urban France. Distributed by Books International. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The French Foreign Legion has established a reputation as the most formidable of military forces. Created as a means of protecting French interests abroad, the legion spearheaded French colonialism in North Africa during the nineteenth century. Accepting volunteers from all parts of the world, the legion acquired an aura of mystery—and a less than enviable reputation for brutality within its ranks. Attracting recruits from all over the world, these new soldiers explain in their own words why they submitted themselves to such brutal training. Voices of the Foreign Legion looks at how the legion selects its recruits, where they come from, and why they seek a life of incredible hardship and danger. It also analyzes the legion’s strict attitude toward discipline, questions why desertion is a perennial problem, and assesses the legion’s military achievements since its formation in 1831. Its scope ranges from the conquest of the colonies in Africa and the Far East, through the horrors of the two World Wars, to the bitter but ultimately hopeless battles to maintain France’s imperial possessions.