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During the First Crusade launched in 1095, thousands of Europeans fought toliberate Jerusalem from the Seljuk Turks. By 1099, they had succeeded, and in the decades thatfollowed, Franks settled in the newly conquered territory, creating a rich intellectual and culturallife. They wrote poetry and histories of their experiences, erected churches and castles, andcommissioned illuminated manuscripts, frescoes, sculpture, and more. The majority of thecrusaders and settlers were French, so the art and culture of France were of abiding importance tothem. But the settlers did not merely transfer French artistic forms to the Levant; they alsoincorporated ideas and images from Byzantine and Islamic neighbors.

In France and the Holy Land, Daniel H. Weiss and Lisa Mahoney bring together leadingscholars from a variety of disciplines to shed light on the many aspects of this Frankish crusaderculture. The authors examine the art, poetry, and architecture of crusader Paris, look at theimprint the Frankish settlers left on the Levant, and explore cultural exchange between theFranks and both Byzantines and Muslims.

Although the crusaders' struggle to hold the occupied lands was ultimately futile, their stay in theLevant produced a unique and fascinating intellectual and cultural flowering that was neitherWestern nor Middle Eastern, but a distinctive melange of both. These thoughtful, provocativeessays from prominent medievalists profoundly broaden and deepen our understanding of thissignificant historical period.

Contributors: Annemarie Weyl Carr, Southern Methodist University; Rebecca W. Corrie, BatesCollege; Anthony Cutler, Pennsylvania State University; Anne Derbes, Hood College; JaroslavFolda, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; David Jacoby, Hebrew University, Jerusalem;Bianca Kühnel, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Gustav Kühnel, Tel Aviv University; Stephen G.Nichols, The Johns Hopkins University; Robert Ousterhout, University of Illinois,Urbana-Champaign; Scott Redford, Georgetown University; Jonathan Riley-Smith, University ofCambridge; Mark Sandona, Hood College ... Read more

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Using a diversity of critical and theoretical approaches from the humanities, Post-Colonial Cultures in France explores the globalization of cultures and international migration. The contributions cover both the ethnic diversity of minority groups and a variety of cultural exchanges ranging from literature and music to film and television. ... Read more

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Since 1989, two sites of memory with respect to the deportation and persecution of Jews in France and Germany during the Second World War have received intense public attention: the Vel d'Hiv (Winter Velodrome) in Paris and the Monument for the Murdered Jews of Europe or 'Holocaust Monument' in Berlin. Why is this so? Both monuments, the author argues, are unique in the history of memorial projects. Although they are genuine 'sites of memory', neither monument celebrates history, but rather serve as platforms for the deliberation, negotiation and promotion of social consensus over the memorial status of war crimes in France and Germany. The debates over these monuments indicate that it is the communication among members of the public via the mass media, rather than qualities inherent in the sites themselves, which transformed these sites into symbols beyond traditional conceptions of heritage and patriotism. ... Read more

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This book provides a new interpretation of the relationship between consumption, drinking culture, memory and cultural identity in an age of rapid political and economic change. Using France as a case-study it explores the construction of a national drinking culture -the myths, symbols and practices surrounding it- and then through a multisited ethnography of wine consumption demonstrates how that culture is in the process of being transformed. Wine drinking culture in France has traditionally been a source of pride for the French and in an age of concerns about the dangers of 'binge-drinking', a major cause of jealousy for the British. Wine drinking and the culture associated with it are, for many, an essential part of what it means to be French, but they are also part of a national construction. Described by some as a national product, or as a 'totem drink', wine and its attendant cultures supposedly characterise Frenchness in much the same way as being born in France, fighting for liberty or speaking French.Yet this traditional picture is now being challenged by economic, social and political forces that have transformed consumption patterns and led to the fragmentation of wine drinking culture. The aim of this book is to provide an original account of the various causes of the long-term decline in alcohol consumption and of the emergence of a new wine drinking culture since the 1970s and to analyse its relationship to national and regional identity. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Post-Louis XIV Not Post-Absolutist
Jay Caplan has written an excellent comparative review of several cultural icons that appeared after the death of Louis XIV in 1715.After an introduction that briefly and inadequately explains the Law affair wherethe Scottish adventurer John Law took over the management of the Frenchroyal bank and became finance minister while converting all money to papermoney based on speculation about the profits to be derived from France'scolonies, Caplan launches into a discussion of a variety of differentitems.The Law Affair, according to Caplan, created paper money withsymbolic value that became worthless which was a metaphor for the waypeople came to see the values of Louis XIV's France.

First, we have thememoires of the Duke of Saint-Simon who as a friend of the Regent, the Dukeof Orleans, sat in the highest councils of government in the immediateaftermath of Louis XIV's death.Saint-Simon later wrote his memoires and,according to Caplan, wrote extensively on the events surrounding theelimination of Louis XIV's bastards from the line of succession in August1718.Louis XIV had gotten the legal system to recognize his bastards'rights shortly before his death.Caplan sees this expression of anti-LouisXIV sentiment as the emergence of a post-absolutist sentiment inFrance.

From this event, we learn a bit about François-Marie Arouet deVoltaire whose first took the name Voltaire with the publication andperformance of his first play in 1719.Then we discuss Watteau's famouspainting, "The Enseigne of Gersaint" (Gersaint's Sign) in 1720shortly before Watteau's death. (This is the most deadly section of thebook discussing artistic theory about a sign showing a art store thatreally existed on the Pont Neuf in Paris and explaining the symbolicmeaning of each person in the painting.)Caplan then discusses two playsfrom the 1720s and 1730s by Marivaux who apparently lost a fortune in theLaw fiasco but Caplan does not explain much about Marivaux's biography.Wefinally go on to the memoires of Casanova who had the occasion to meetLouis XV under let's say Clintonian conditions after making a youngprostitute available to the king.We finish with Casanova's tale of hismeeting with Voltaire in 1760 which Casanova expounds in great detailwhile, according to his own writing, Voltaire simply thought the Italianwas a fool.

This book is not for the uninitiated (which is why I gave itfour instead of five stars).It is quite academic and can be very turgidat times.Yet, it does illuminate a lost period in French history betweenthe death of Louis XIV and the rise of a national sentiment that would leadto the overthrow of the Old Regime.My one quibble with Caplan is thatafter the death of kings there is always a reaction against the way thingswere under the old king.After Reagan's departure from the scene in 1989there was a reaction against his era just like I am sure there will be areaction against Clinton once he departs the White House.Some as yetunknown duke of Saint-Simon will glory in defeating Clinton after he isgone.Rather than post-absolutist I believe a better term would bepost-Louis XIV culture, unless Caplan is saying that Louis XIV is theepitomy of absolutism.If he believes this, he does not say so. ... Read more

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The years of the Third Republic (1870-1940) in France were ones of intense social and economic transformation as workers struggled to defend their rights in the face of growing industrial capitalism. In The Fabric of Gender, Helen Chenut paints a vivid picture of working life during these years by following four generations of laboring women and men in one community, the textile town of Troyes in the Champagne region.

In Troyes workers were locked in an adversarial relationship with mill owners, whose monopoly over the labor market in a single-industry town largely determined the workers' future. And yet workers managed to create a counterculture of resistance by founding labor unions, consumer cooperatives, and socialist parties through which they were gradually able to implement change. Women were key actors in this struggle as their garment-making skills became increasingly important to the growing productivity of the knitted textile industry. Drawing upon rich archival records, oral histories, and highly evocative illustrations, Chenut tells a fascinating story of this fight for a 'social republic,' one in which both men and women had the right to work for a living wage and to partake in a consumer society.

The Fabric of Gender appears at a time when European labor historians are reexamining their field. Chenut's innovative study of working-class culture--integrating gender, class, politics, and consumption--stands as a model for the expansion of labor history beyond traditional lines of inquiry. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. ... Read more

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`Well-balanced collection of essays...judiciously selected and presented'. 15TH CENTURY STUDIES
Eight essays around the central theme of the the importance of popular support in the effective exercise of power, both political andreligious, and how that support was mustered in late medieval France. ... Read more

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The book is an analysis of the cultural and social functions of law, legalprocesses and legal rituals in late medieval Northern France.It is centered around a time and a place in which European law underwent somemajor transformations, from a plethora of local oral customs to a fairlycoherent system of national, written customary law. In this process, law andlegal procedures came to reflect a great variety of cultural traditions,ranging from popular perceptions of animals and the human body to learnedideas of Roman jurisprudence.Drawing upon wide-ranging sources: judicial, legal, literary and historical,Cohen analyzes the various influences upon the shaping of law as a culturalmanifestation and its application as an actual system of justice. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

crossroads of justice
Esther Cohen's book, The Crossroads of Justice, is intriguing.Her analysis of law and justice gives a fascinating look at the dynamics of community life as well as the relationship of the state to crime andcriminal prosecution. ... Read more

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What's new in French feminism at the beginning of the 21st century? How did France, within a decade, change from one of the most backward European societies in terms of women's representation in the political sphere, into one of the most progressive in this area? What are French and Francophone women up to in the arts and literature? The essays in this volume, written by the most prominent personalities in the field, examine some of the new issues that have arisen in French society in the past twenty years. In general, these essays reflect the shift from the literary and psychoanalytic approaches that characterized French feminism twenty years ago, to the more social and political questions of today. Some of the topics include the "parity" and "PACS" debates, the France-USA exchanges, the issue of "multiculturalism," the new historical approaches, and the most recent trends in literature and film by women, among others.
... Read more

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For many centuries, the Western imagination has pictured the medieval period as a kind of odyssey: a journey that took humankind to a strange country and ended in the Renaissance with its homecoming and the restoration of its inheritance. In this stimulating and provocative book, Christopher Page, Director of the acclaimed early music vocal group Gothic Voices, explores the kinds of generalizations that we habitually make about "the Middle Ages" and which, whether we know it or not, sustain the false image of a medieval odyssey. In chapters that proceed chronologically from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, he examines what we suppose to be the serenity of medieval reflection on such matters as the "numerical" explanation of musical beauty, and he questions the modern tendency to regard Ars antiqua motets as music for "an intellectual elite." Turning to the Ars Nova and beyond, he discusses the relation between fourteenth century innovations and contemporary science. A final chapter explores the powerful influence of Johan Huizinga's classic The Waning of the Middle Ages upon musicology. Page's lively prose is full of provocative ideas, and is enriched by an uncommonly deep experience of medieval music. ... Read more

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In France during the 1960s and 1970s, popular music became a key component of socio-cultural modernization as the music/record industry became increasingly important in both economic and cultural terms in response to demographic changes and the rise of the modern media. As France began questioning traditional ways of understanding politics and culture before and after May 1968, music as popular culture became an integral part of burgeoning media activity. Press, radio and television developed free from de Gaulle's state domination of information, and political activism shifted its concerns to the use of regional languages and regional cultures, including the safeguard of traditional popular music against the centralizing tendencies of the Republican state. The cultural and political significance of French music was again revealed in the 1990s, as French-language music became a highly visible example of France's quest to maintain her cultural "exceptionalism" in the face of the perceived globalizing hegemony of English and US business and cultural imperialism. Laws were passed instituting minimum quotas of French-language music.The 1980s and 1990s witnessed developing issues raised by new technologies, as compact discs, the minitel telematics system, the Internet and other innovations in radio and television broadcasting posed new challenges to musicians and the music industry. These trends and developments are the subject of this volume of essays by leading scholars across a range of disciplines including French studies, musicology, cultural and media studies and film studies. It constitutes an attempt to provide a complete and up-to-date overview of the place of popular music in modern France and the reception of French popular music abroad. ... Read more

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Between about 1830 and the outbreak of the First World War, print culture, reading, and writing transformed cultural life in Western Europe in many significant ways. Book production and consumption increased dramatically, and practices such as letter- and diary-writing were widespread. This study demonstrates the importance of the nineteenth century in French cultural change and illustrates the changing priorities and concerns of l'histoire du livre since the 1970s.

From the 1830s on, book production experienced an industrial revolution which led to the emergence of a mass literary culture by the close of the century. At the same time, the western world acquired mass literacy. New categories of readers became part of the reading public while western society also learned to write. Reading Culture and Writing Practices in Nineteenth-Century France examines how the concerns of historians have shifted from a search for statistical sources to more qualitative assessments of readers' responses. Martyn Lyons argues that autobiographical sources are vitally important to this investigation and he considers examples of the intimate and everyday writings of ordinary people.

Featuring original and intriguing insights as well as references to material hitherto inaccessible to English readers, this study presents a form of 'history from below' with emphasis on the individual reader and writer, and his or her experiences and perceptions.

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Aristocratic Experience and the Origins of Modern Culture explores a crucial moment in the history of European selfhood. During the seventeenth century, French nobles began to understand their lives in terms of personal histories and inner qualities, rather than as the products of tradition and inheritance. This preoccupation with the self accompanied a critical view of society, monarchy, and Christian teachings. It also shaped a new understanding of political realities and personal relations.Drawing from a combination of memoirs, literary works, and archival sources, Jonathan Dewald offers a new understanding of aristocratic sensibilities. In detailed fashion, he explores the nobles' experience of war, career, money, family, love, and friendship. In all of these areas, nobles felt a gap between social expectations and personal needs; in the seventeenth century this tension became increasingly oppressive. Modern French culture, Dewald argues, emerged from this conflict between tradition and the individual's inner life. ... Read more

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Offers the first systematic reappraisal of the cultural representation of war in Britain and France during the eighteenth century. ... Read more