"In the post-war era Jews have been incomparably less numerous than before and often deeply assimilated. Still, their presence's felt as big. The book is scholarly and also deeply personal. Most of the events and processes described here have a strong connection to the author's life, particularly the post-1968 mini-renaissance of Jewish life, especially in its religious variety, and advances in the realm of Jewish-Christian relations and particularly of Jewish-Christian dialogue. In addition to an account of the history of Jews in Poland after 1945, Jewish-Christian dialogue in that period, including meeting with the Polish pope, the chapters treat the concept of de-assimilation used as a key to understand the most recent phase of the story, analyze how Jewish were Jewish Communists, ponder what were the assumptions behind the post-war section of the core exhibition in POLIN, and offer an original proposal why the Holocaust is widely considered as unique"--

Great historians have seldom described the notable events in which they themselves participated. Marc Bloch - author of Feudal Society, the classic study of medieval social systems and co-founder of the influential French historical journal Annales - is an exception, In his powerful memoir The Strange Defeat, he analysed the fall of France in 1940 from the viewpoint of combatant as well as historian. And in his Memoirs of War, 1914-15, here in its first English translation (originally published in hard covers in 1980 by Cornell University Press), Bloch left a keen and affecting account of his earliest experience of war. Carole Fink's introduction includes a brief biography of Bloch, discusses the effect of the war upon his intellectual development, and assesses his achievements as a historian. Though Bloch survived the savage trench warfare of the First World War, he was shot by a Gestapo firing squad in 1944 for his participation in the Resistance. Trenchant, inspiring, and tersely written, Memoirs of War, 1914-15 is a monument to a great scholar and fierce patriot.

This book provides a concise, accurate, and lively portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte's character and career, situating him firmly in historical context. David Bell emphasizes the astonishing sense of human possibility--for both good and ill--that Napoleon represented. By his late twenties, Napoleon was already one of the greatest generals in European history. At thirty, he had become absolute master of Europe's most powerful country. In his early forties, he ruled a European empire more powerful than any since Rome, fighting wars that changed the shape of the continent and brought death to millions. Then everything collapsed, leading him to spend his last years in miserable exile in the South Atlantic. Bell emphasizes the importance of the French Revolution in understanding Napoleon's career. The revolution made possible the unprecedented concentration of political authority that Napoleon accrued, and his success in mobilizing human and material resources. Without the political changes brought about by the revolution, Napoleon could not have fought his wars. Without the wars, he could not have seized and held onto power. Though his virtual dictatorship betrayed the ideals of liberty and equality, his life and career were revolutionary.

"Schiffrin evokes the bittersweet tang of emigre life in New York." --The New York Times Book Review Andre Schiffrin was born the son of one of France's most esteemed publishers, in a world peopled by some of the day's leading writers and intellectuals, such as Andre Gide, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Antoine de Saint-Exupery. But this world was torn apart when the Nazis marched into Paris on young Andre's fifth birthday. Beginning with the family's dramatic escape to Casablanca--thanks to the help of the legendary Varian Fry--and eventually New York, A Political Education recounts the surprising twists and turns of a life that saw Schiffrin become, himself, one of the world's most respected publishers. Emerging from the emigre community of wartime New York (a community that included his father's friends Hannah Arendt and Helen and Kurt Wolff), he would go on to develop an insatiable appetite for literature and politics: heading a national student group he renamed the Students for a Democratic Society--the SDS. leading student groups at European conferences, once, as an unwitting front man for the CIA. and eventually being appointed by Random House chief Bennett Cerf to head the very imprint cofounded by his father--Pantheon. There, he would discover and publish some of the world's leading writers, including Noam Chomsky, Michel Foucault, Art Spiegelman, Studs Terkel, and Marguerite Duras. But in a move that would make headlines, Schiffrin would ultimately rebel at corporate ownership and form his own publishing house--The New Press--where he would go on to set a new standard for independent publishing. A Political Education is a fascinating intellectual memoir that tells not only the story of a unique and important figure, but of the tumultuous political times that shaped him. From the Hardcover edition"--

Napoleon III, being accused on one occasion of having nothing of the Great Napoleon about him, replied with as much exasperation as wit, that he did, on the contrary, have his relations. This book is a domestic chronicle of the incredible Bonaparte family, a greedy, amorous, quarrelsome and hot-blooded Corsican clan who provided nineteenth-century Europe — and America — not only with two French emperors but also with a dazzling assortment of pretenders and parvenus, statesmen and eccentrics, great ladies and adventurers. Plumped onto the thrones of Europe by the career of Napoleon I, who probably took better care of his family than any other conqueror in history, the Bonapartes survived the wreck of the two empires they ruled, buzzing around the honeypots of the continent with all the persistence of the imperial bees of Napoleon's crest. This is a personal history, not a political one. It is the family, with its eccentricities, vulgarities and fascinations manifesting themselves in generation after generation, which holds the centre of the stage. The great political, economic and military events of the time are heard dimly as 'noises off'. Napoleon I himself appears as a son, brother, husband, father and above all as the founder of a dynasty, rather than as a great public figure. Theo Aronson paints this family portrait with a wealth of detail based on many years of research with historical documents and original records, letters, memoirs and family diaries. Praise for The Golden Bees: ‘A very considerable feat… a long, comfortable, easy-going sort of narrative full of tit-bits of information, stuffed with anecdotes’ - Observer ‘This is a hugely entertaining book. Neither biography nor history; but a mixture of both.… All lovers of royal gossip, of sprightly anecdotes and of the scandal and personal drama of history should delight in it’ - New York Times Theo Aronson is the author of over twenty works of royal historical biography, published in eleven languages. Among the widely read are Grandmama of Europe, The King in Love, Napoleon and Josephine and a biography of Princess Margaret. In the course of researching and writing these books he has interviewed major and minor members of Britain’s royal family and members of the royal households, as well as various officials, servants, friends and others whose lives are in some way connected with the monarchy.

Siegfried Kracauer’s Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time brilliantly reconfigures the biography form into a remarkable work of social and cultural history. In a book that has frequently been compared with Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project, Kracauer uses the life and work of Offenbach to assemble a penetrating portrayal of Second Empire Paris. By examining the superficiality and mystification of collective experience, Kracauer provides the reader with a revelatory “physiognomy” of social reality itself. Offenbach’s immensely popular operettas have long been seen as part of the larger historical amnesia and escapism in the aftermath of 1848. But Kracauer insists that Offenbach’s productions have to be understood as more than simply glittering distractions. The fantasy realms of his operettas, occurring amid the urban renewal of Baron Haussmann and the fanfare of Universal Expositions, were on the one hand fully continuous with the unreality of Napoleon III’s imperial masquerade, but on the other made a mockery of the pomp and pretenses surrounding the apparatuses of power. His music “originated in an epoch in which social reality had been banished by the Emperor’s orders, and for many years it flourished in the gap that was left.” Offenbach’s dreamworlds were embedded with a layer of utopian content that can be seen as an indictment of the fraudulence and corruption of the times. This book will be essential reading for anyone interested in modern critical and cultural studies. This edition includes Kracauer’s preface to the original German edition, translated into English for the first time, and a critical foreword by Gertrud Koch.

"Lettres d'un Innocent: The Letters of Captain Dreyfus to His Wife" offers a poignant and invaluable firsthand account of one of the most significant political scandals in French history: the Dreyfus Affair. Penned by Alfred Dreyfus himself, these letters to his wife, Lucie, provide a deeply personal window into his experience as he faced accusations of treason and endured the crucible of military justice. This historical collection allows readers to witness the emotional and intellectual resilience of Alfred Dreyfus during a time of immense personal and national turmoil. More than just correspondence, these letters are a testament to enduring love and unwavering hope in the face of injustice. Explore the complexities of the Dreyfus Affair through the intimate lens of a man fighting to clear his name, offering a unique perspective on a pivotal moment in European history. A powerful and moving historical document. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Edgar Morin, one of France's greatest living intellectuals, tells the story of his father, Vidal Nahoum, but also the story of Sephardic Jews, and of Europe. In this 'holographic history' Vidal's story, and that of his family, carries within it the flowering, decline, and death of Jewish culture in Spain, the passage from Empires to Nation States, the complex relations between Jews and Gentiles, between East and West, and, ultimately, the history of the twentieth century itself. Morin's work ranges from the great sweep of global historical events to the everyday details of individual lives, letters, feelings, reflections, and experiences. Vidal was born in 1894 in the Ottoman Empire's great Macedonian port. His great-grandfather came from Tuscany and spoke Italian. His mother tongue was fifteenth-century Spanish. He learned French and German as a child. When he was an adolescent, he dreamed of living in France; he was deported there as a prisoner, and then liberated by the French Prime Minister. He lived through the Balkan wars, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and two World Wars. Vidal cannot be isolated from his family. And as Edgar Morin explains, "this book also tells the stories of the men and women in his immediate family When, as his son, I inevitably come into his story... I describe him as objectively as possible. The reverence that inspired me did not call for a work of edification; it implied that I should attempt to write a truthful book. For this reason, the book is not in the least respectful, or at least not in the usual sense of the word. Vidal felt that loving someone meant being able to tease him. The author of these lines, who has inherited something of this trait, does not think it disrespectful to tease or make fun of the people he loves."