Historians of the Cold War, argues William Hitchcock, have too often overlooked the part that European nations played in shaping the post-World War II international system. In particular, France, a country beset by economic difficulties and political instability in the aftermath of the war, has been given short shrift. With this book, Hitchcock restores France to the narrative of Cold War history and illuminates its central role in the reconstruction of Europe. Drawing on a wide array of evidence from French, American, and British archives, he shows that France constructed a coherent national strategy for domestic and international recovery and pursued that strategy with tenacity and effectiveness in the first postwar decade. This once-occupied nation played a vital part in the occupation and administration of Germany, framed the key institutions of the "new" Europe, helped forge the NATO alliance, and engineered an astonishing economic recovery. In the process, France successfully contested American leadership in Europe and used its position as a key Cold War ally to extract concessions from Washington on a wide range of economic and security issues.

This volume goes behind the scenes to reveal the history and metamorphosis of the Hôtel de la Marine, a treasure of Parisian heritage. The Hôtel de la Marine, an exemplary monument on Paris’s Place de la Concorde, is a superb architectural achievement constructed in the eighteenth century by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, the official architect of King Louis XV. The institution it housed was charged with choosing, purchasing, and maintaining all of the king’s furniture—from beds to the simplest chair—and the crown’s treasures were stored here until 1789, after which it became the site of the Ministry of the Navy for more than two hundred years. An extensive four-year restoration was completed in 2021; the building reopened to the public and features a museum, conserved apartments that highlight the tastes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, an exhibition hall, a bookshop, and three restaurants. Previously unpublished photography captures the splendor and majesty of the monument.

The decades following the 1973 publication of Alessandro Conti’s Storia del Restauro have seen considerable scholarly interest in the development of restoration in France in the second half of the eighteenth century. A number of technical treatises and biographies of restorers have offered insight into restoration practice. The Restoration of Paintings in Paris, 1750–1815, however, is the first book to situate this work within the broader historical and philosophical contexts of the time. Drawing on previously unpublished primary material from archives in Paris, Berlin, Rome, and Venice, Noémie Étienne combines art history with anthropology and sociology to survey the waning decades of the Ancien Régime and early post– Revolution France. Initial chapters present the diversity of restoration practice, encompassing not only royal institutions and the Louvre museum but also private art dealers, artists, and craftsmen, and examine questions of trade secrecy and the changing role of the restorer. Following chapters address the influence of restoration and exhibition on the aesthetic understanding of paintings as material objects. The book closes with a discussion of the institutional and political uses of restoration, along with an art historical consideration of such key concepts as authenticity, originality, and stability of artworks, emphasizing the multilayered dimension of paintings by such important artists as Titian and Raphael. There is also a useful dictionary of the main restorers active in France between 1750 and 1815.

Originally published in 1957—years before he was Secretary of State and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize—, Henry Kissinger wrote A World Restored, to understand and explain one of history’s most important and dramatic periods; a time when Europe went from political chaos to a balanced peace that lasted for almost a hundred years. After the fall of Napoleon, European diplomats gathered in a festive Vienna with the task of restoring stability following the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. The central figures at the Congress of Vienna were the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, Viscount Castlereagh and the Foreign Minister of Austria Klemens Wenzel von Mettern Metternich. Castlereagh was primarily concerned with maintaining balanced powers, while Metternich based his diplomacy on the idea of legitimacy—that is, establishing and working with governments that citizens accept without force. The peace they brokered lasted until the outbreak of World War I. Through trenchant analysis of the history and forces that create stability, A World Restored gives insight into how to create long-lasting geopolitical peace-lessons that Kissinger saw as applicable to the period immediately following World War II, when he was writing this book. But the lessons don’t stop there. Like all good insights, the book’s wisdom transcends any single political period. Kissinger’s understanding of coalitions and balance of power can be applied to personal and professional situations, such as dealing with a tyrannical boss or co-worker or formulating business or organizational tactics. Regardless of his ideology, Henry Kissinger has had an important impact on modern politics and few would dispute his brilliance as a strategist. For anyone interested in Western history, the tactics of diplomacy, or political strategy, this volume will provide deep understanding of a pivotal time.

Moliére's anticlerical comedy Tartuffe is the unique prism through which Sheryl Kroen views postrevolutionary France in the years of the Restoration. Following the lead of the French men and women who turned to this play in the 1820s to make sense of their world, Kroen exposes the crisis of legitimacy defining the regime in these years and demonstrates how the people of the time made steps toward a democratic resolution to this crisis. Moving from the town squares, where state and ecclesiastical officials orchestrated their public spectacles in favor of the monarchy, to the theaters, where the French used Tartuffe to mock the restored monarch and the church, this cultural history of the Restoration offers a rich and colorful portrait of a period in which critical legacies of the revolutionary period were played out and cemented. While most historians have characterized the Restoration as a period of reaction and reversal, Kroen offers convincing evidence that the Restoration was a critical bridge between the emerging practices of the Old Regime, the Revolution, and the post-1830 politics of protest. She re-creates the atmosphere of Restoration France and at the same time brings major nineteenth-century themes into focus: memory and commemoration, public and private spheres, politics and religion, anticlericalism, and the formation of democratic ideologies and practices.

How social upheavals after the collapse of the French Empire shaped the lives and work of artists in early nineteenth-century Europe As the French Empire collapsed between 1812 and 1815, artists throughout Europe were left uncertain and adrift. The final abdication of Emperor Napoleon, clearing the way for a restored monarchy, profoundly unsettled prevailing national, religious, and social boundaries. In Restoration, Thomas Crow combines a sweeping view of European art centers—Rome, Paris, London, Madrid, Brussels, and Vienna—with a close-up look at pivotal artists, including Antonio Canova, Jacques-Louis David, Théodore Géricault, Francisco Goya, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Thomas Lawrence, and forgotten but meteoric painters François-Joseph Navez and Antoine Jean-Baptiste Thomas. Whether directly or indirectly, all were joined in a newly international network, from which changing artistic priorities and possibilities emerged out of the ruins of the old. Crow examines how artists of this period faced dramatic circumstances, from political condemnation and difficult diplomatic missions to a catastrophic episode of climate change. Navigating ever-changing pressures, they invented creative ways of incorporating critical events and significant historical actors into fresh artistic works. Crow discusses, among many topics, David’s art and influence during exile, Géricault’s odyssey through outcast Rome, Ingres’s drive to reconcile religious art with contemporary mentalities, the titled victors over Napoleon all sitting for portraits by Lawrence, and the campaign to restore art objects expropriated by the French from Italy, prefiguring the restitution controversies of our own time. Restoration explores how cataclysmic social and political transformations in nineteenth-century Europe reshaped artists’ lives and careers with far-reaching consequences. Published in association with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC Please note: All images in this ebook are presented in black and white and have been reduced in size.

When Louis XVIII returned to the throne in 1814, and again in 1815, France embarked upon a period of uneasy cohabitation between the old and the new. The writers of the age, who included Chateaubriand, Stendhal, Balzac, and Mme de Duras, agreed that they lived at a historical turning point, a transitional moment whose outcome, though still uncertain, would transform the French way of life--beginning with the French way of love. The literary works of the Bourbon Restoration ceaselessly return to the themes of love, sex, and marriage, partly as vital cultural questions in their own right, but also as a means of critiquing the deficiencies of past regimes, negotiating the politics of the present, and imagining the shape of the political future. In the literature of the Restoration, love and politics become entwined in a mutually metaphorical embrace. The Amorous Restoration, the first book in English devoted to literary and cultural life under the last Bourbon kings, considers this relationship in all its richness and many contradictions. Long neglected as a drab historical backwater, the Restoration emerges here as a vibrant era, one rife with sharp cultural and political disagreements, and possessed of an especially refined sense of allusion, discretion, and even humour. Drawing on literature, journalism, political writing, life writing, and gossip, The Amorous Restoration vividly recreates the erotic sensibilities of a pivotal moment in the transition from an amorous old regime to erotic--and political--modernity.

David French warns of the potential dangers to the country—and the world—if we don’t summon the courage to reconcile our political differences. Two decades into the 21st Century, the U.S. is less united than at any time in our history since the Civil War. We are more diverse in our beliefs and culture than ever before. But red and blue states, secular and religious groups, liberal and conservative idealists, and Republican and Democratic representatives all have one thing in common: each believes their distinct cultures and liberties are being threatened by an escalating violent opposition. This polarized tribalism, espoused by the loudest, angriest fringe extremists on both the left and the right, dismisses dialogue as appeasement; if left unchecked, it could very well lead to secession. An engaging mix of cutting edge research and fair-minded analysis, Divided We Fall is an unblinking look at the true dimensions and dangers of this widening ideological gap, and what could happen if we don't take steps toward bridging it. French reveals chilling, plausible scenarios of how the United States could fracture into regions that will not only weaken the country but destabilize the world. But our future is not written in stone. By implementing James Madison’s vision of pluralism—that all people have the right to form communities representing their personal values—we can prevent oppressive factions from seizing absolute power and instead maintain everyone’s beliefs and identities across all fifty states. Reestablishing national unity will require the bravery to commit ourselves to embracing qualities of kindness, decency, and grace towards those we disagree with ideologically. French calls on all of us to demonstrate true tolerance so we can heal the American divide. If we want to remain united, we must learn to stand together again.

This book examines public discussions around France's four most prominent royal women during the first and second Restoration and July Monarchy: the duchesse d’Angoulême, the duchesse de Berry, Queen of the French Marie-Amélie, and Adélaïde d’Orléans. These were the most powerful women of the last decades of the French monarchy, but the new roles women were assigned in post-revolutionary France did not permit them to openly exercise political influence. This book explores continuities and variations in narratives of royal legitimacy, and how historians, authors, and politicians used national history - particularly medieval and early modern history - to either legitimize or undermine the French monarchy, and to define women's social and political roles.

Sam and Bud intended to move to France and create a simple life with their children. However they bought a 17th century chateau with over thirty rooms. With modest savings, they restored the building and started a bed and breakfast against resistance from the locals. This is a glimpse into what it takes to leave everything behind to pursue a dream.