Showing titles in France

Métronome, c'était le grand souffle de l'Histoire de France sur la capitale. Métronome 2, c'est tout le passé des Parisiens qui se déroule au fil de nos pas jusqu'à nous projeter dans notre réalité d'aujourd'hui. Tout a commencé rue Saint-Jacques. Puis, à chaque siècle, une nouvelle voie fondatrice a matérialisé le développement de la ville, s'éparpillant bientôt en un maillage de rues, carrefours et ruelles où le temps nous échappe dans un flot de souvenirs.

No historical figure’s life story offers a more intriguing and insightful look at a specific moment in French - and European - history than that of Joan of Arc. Over the course of a life that sadly lasted just 19 years, Joan of Arc completely altered the course of the Hundred Year’s War. Ultimately, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake for her insistence that she received counsel from God, but what she achieved as a result of this guidance is a truly incredible story.

Carcassonne today is the capital of the Aude department in the Occitanie region of southwestern France, about 58 miles from Toulouse. It lies by the eastward bend of the glittering cobalt waters of the River Aude, which serves as a barrier between the two towns of the city: the Cité and the Ville Basse. It is the old Cité that attracts most of Carcassonne's visitors (three million of them each year), for it houses the historic fortress that looks like it came straight out of a fairy tale. This audiobook examines the origins of the site and its sweeping history.

Agincourt (1415) is an exceptionally famous battle, one that has generated a huge and enduring cultural legacy in the 600 years since it was fought. Everybody thinks they know what the battle was about. 

We live in an age of unprecedented prosperity, yet everywhere we see signs that our pursuit of happiness has proven fruitless. Dissatisfied, we seek change for the sake of change - even if it means undermining the foundations of our common life. In Why We Are Restless, Benjamin and Jenna Storey offer a profound and beautiful reflection on the roots of this malaise and examine how we might begin to cure ourselves.

Napoleon is regarded as one of history’s greatest generals, and Austerlitz was his greatest victory. Napoleon’s French army would still be well outnumbered at Austerlitz by a joint Russo-Austrian army. The Battle of Austerlitz was a tactical masterpiece that saw Napoleon actually invite an attack on his army by the bigger Coalition army. The result was a decisive victory that virtually annihilated the Third Coalition’s army and made Napoleon the master of the European continent.

In these diaries, it is 1989, and Annie is divorced with two grown sons, living outside of Paris, and nearing fifty. Her lover escapes the city to see her there, and Ernaux seems to survive only in expectation of these encounters, saying “his desire for me is the only thing I can be sure of.” She cannot write; she trudges distractedly through her various other commitments in the world; she awaits his next call; she lives only to feel desire and for the next rendezvous. When he is gone and the desire has faded, she feels that she is a step closer to death.

From an award-winning historian, the story of World War II exiles and one famed Paris hotel. Since its birth in 1910, the Hotel Lutetia has been a grand Paris institution, a meeting place for artists, intellectuals, musicians, and politicians. André Gide took his lunch here, James Joyce lived...

Jean Antoinette Poussin, the woman who would become known as Madame de Pompadour, was a middle-class girl of uncertain parenthood who became one of many in a long line of King Louis XV’s mistresses before she died at the age of 42. While none of that stands out on its own when it comes to French history and royalty, historians have labeled her “no ordinary king’s mistress.... She made and unmade ministers, she selected ambassadors, she appointed generals, [and] she conferred pensions and places."

The challenges facing General Dwight Eisenhower before the Invasion of Normandy were not merely military, but political as well. He knew that to liberate France, and to hold it, the Allies needed local help, which would necessitate coordinating with the highly independent French resistance groups known collectively as the maquis. The Allies' objective was to push the Germans out of France. The French objective, on the other hand, was a France free of all foreign armies, including the Allies.

Troisième volume du Journal des Goncourt (1866-1870), ces Mémoires de la vie littéraire saisissent, jour après jour, le pouls d’une époque. D’une table d’hôte au Havre où des capitaines de commerce jugent la « paix à tout prix » de Louis‑Philippe, aux rêveries d’une nuit au porto — arrivée en Angleterre avec Gavarni, maison aux décors qui changent — s’y mêlent notes vives, colères et délicates impressions. Regard acéré, style nerveux, humour et mélancolie: Edmond et Jules fixent l’instant, la conversation, le climat des idées.

The Congress of Vienna, which took place over several months during 1814 and 1815, was an attempt to resolve the numerous challenges presented by Napoleon’s expansion and his subsequent defeat. The talks have been seen as a critical moment in European history, and depending on the point-of-view, the results were either a diplomatic breakthrough or the last gasps of the continent’s conservative elites. It was also a crucial step toward German unification, although this was not clear at the time.

The Hundred Years' War: A Captivating Guide to One of the Most Notable Conflicts of the Middle Ages and in European History and the Life of Joan of Arc contains two captivating manuscripts in one audiobook: The Hundred Years’ War: A Captivating Guide to the Conflicts Between the English House of Plantagenet and the French House of Valois That Took Place During the Middle Ages and Joan of Arc: A Captivating Guide to a Heroine of France and Her Role During the Lancastrian Phase of the Hundred Years’ War.

Exploring the successful Norman invasion of England in 1066, this concise and listenable book focuses especially on the often dramatic and enduring changes wrought by William the Conqueror and his followers. Hugh M. Thomas considers the conquest's wide-ranging impact by taking a fresh look at such traditional themes as the influence of battles and great men on history and by assessing how far the shift in ruling dynasty and noble elites affected broader aspects of English history.

On January 5, 1895, Captain Alfred Dreyfus's cries of innocence were drowned out by a mob shouting "Death to Judas!" In this book, Maurice Samuels gives listeners new insight into Dreyfus himself—the man at the center of the affair. He tells the story of Dreyfus's early life in Paris, his promising career as a French officer, the false accusation leading to his imprisonment on Devil's Island, the fight to prove his innocence that divided the French nation, and his life of quiet obscurity after World War I.

Written in a straightforward, personal tone, the pamphlet is equal parts guidebook, cultural snapshot, and propaganda piece. A central aim of this pamphlet was to dispel any prejudices American soldiers may have about the French—especially relating to their quick capitulation in 1940.

Nearly 50 years after Napoleon met his Waterloo, generals across the West continued to study his tactics and engage their armies the same way armies fought during the Napoleonic Era. Despite advances in military technology and the advent of railroads for transportation, all of which made defensive warfare more effective, acclaimed military geniuses like Robert E. Lee used flank attacks and infantry charges against superior numbers in an effort to win decisive victories.

The French Revolution facilitated the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, but after gaining power he knew that his first task was to end it. In this book William Doyle describes how he did so, beginning with the three large issues that had destabilized revolutionary France: war, religion, and monarchy.

Si je n'avais pas été français, j'aurais tant aimé l'être ! Il y a tellement à écrire sur ce peuple. Parce que les français sont capables d'inventer le cinéma, la voiture, la radioactivité, mais également le soutien-gorge, le croque-monsieur, la poubelle et le dentier. Un pays vu comme celui de l'amour et dont les mots "voulez-vous coucher avec moi ?" sont les plus prononcés par les étrangers.

La Seconde Guerre mondiale a été menée derrière les lignes ennemies par une armée du silence. Cette armée, c'est celle des réseaux de Résistance pilotés par les services secrets de la France libre et des Alliés. Leurs missions : recueil et transmission de renseignements, émissions radio clandestines, opérations secrètes et sabotages. Ces réseaux (Comète, Alliance, Saint-Jacques…) sont des acteurs majeurs de la victoire finale contre l'oppression nazie et fasciste. Leurs secrets ont été conservés dans des archives, ouvertes récemment.