French World

The principles of the French Revolution remain the only possible basis for a just society - even if, after more than 200 years, they are more contested than ever before. In A New World Begins, Jeremy D. Popkin offers a riveting account of the revolution that puts the listener in the thick of the debates and the violence that led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a new society.

When Jacques Lusseyran was an eight-year-old Parisian schoolboy, he was blinded in an accident. He finished his schooling determined to participate in the world around him. In 1941, when he was seventeen, that world was Nazi-occupied France. Lusseyran formed a resistance group with fifty-two boys and used his heightened senses to recruit the best. Eventually, Lusseyran was arrested and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp in a transport of two thousand resistance fighters.

Before the trenches of 1914 or the battles of the 1940s, there was a war that set the entire globe ablaze. This conflict, fought from 1754 to 1763, was the true first world war, a brutal contest for imperial domination that stretched from the wilderness of Pennsylvania to the palaces of India. It was here that the modern world was forged in a crucible of ambition, finance, and gunpowder. This single, sprawling conflict saw French and British regulars clash on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec, while Robert Clive's corporate mercenaries engineered a coup in Bengal. It was a war for the sugar-...

In the dark days of war, who can you trust? When journalist Marlene Villeret parachutes into Nazi-occupied France by moonlight, her role is to observe the French way of life until her departure at the next full moon. With swastikas draped around Paris and families torn from their homes in front of helpless friends and neighbours, Marlene wants to do more with her short time in the city. But when she forms a bond with Niklas, a German soldier, she has cause to question all that she thought she knew about the war. With every passing day, Marlene is drawn further into danger. When she is ...

It is an era that redefined history. As the 1790s began, a fragile America teetered on the brink of oblivion, Russia towered as a vast imperial power, and France plunged into revolution. But in contrast to the way conventional histories tell it, none of these remarkable events occurred in...

For low - to high-intermediate learners. Improve your French and expand your vocabulary with topics that matter. When it comes to mastering a foreign language, learning around your interests makes all the difference. But finding audiobooks designed for language learners can be hard! This audiobook fixes that. For the first time, you’ll learn to improve your French while listening about the history of World War II.

A migrant fleet, a million strong, sets sail from Calcutta. Its destination: Europe. As the fleet advances, the continent is submerged under a torrent of words. Will the old nations of Europe resist the migrants or welcome them? Honor their past or embrace the radiant future? Open fire or open their hearts? Enthusiasm, delusion, cowardice. And, finally, panic. The migrants make landfall...

She gave away her child to save his life. Another woman took him in, at risk to herself. Viviane Renaud is a young mother living on the French Riviera in the Second World War. Times are hard but she is not the sort to be dismayed by circumstances. One day her life changes forever. A young Jewish woman, fleeing from the authorities, begs her to take care of her four year old boy, David. Almost without thinking, Viviane agrees. Viviane’s life is never the same again. She fabricates a story to explain how David came to be with her and must tip-toe around the suspicions of her neighbours, her...

400,000 COPIES SOLD ACROSS THE FIRST TWO EDITIONS This book is the perfect Christmas gift for coffee lovers. An in-depth guide to the dynamic world of coffee production by the Sunday Times bestselling* author of How to Make the Best Coffee at Home, James Hoffmann. *** For everyone who wants to...

Born in Blackness vitally reframes the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in the West, and the fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe's dehumanizing engagement with the "dark" continent. In fact, French reveals, the first impetus for the Age of Discovery was not—as we are so often told, even today—Europe's yearning for ties with Asia, but rather its centuries-old desire to forge a trade in gold with legendarily rich Black societies in the heart of West Africa.

Nine-year-old Oscar Rosenfeld chases his runaway kitten, delighted to be outdoors after months of being cooped up in a small Viennese apartment. His parents and sister Miriam race after him in alarm. He immediately runs into two policemen who catch hold of him. But they have no intention of returning him safely to his family. Their faces contort in disgust and rage. For Oscar has Down’s Syndrome and as such is targeted by the Nazis for extermination. Oscar’s parents fight to save him, their father is killed and their mother is beaten to the ground. Her last words to Miriam are to take ...

The international bestselling novel sold in 21 countries, about grief, mourning, and the joy of survival, inspired by a real phone booth in Japan with its disconnected “wind” phone, a place of pilgrimage and solace since the 2011 tsunami When Yui loses both her mother and her daughter in the...

A USA TODAY bestselling novel! As Paris rebuilds in the aftermath of World War II, Kat Fontaine never expected the skills she learned in a French chateau kitchen to be the key that unlocks the secrets swirling in her new post-war life. "Balancing action-packed scenes with entertaining...

The daughters of a French railway engineer are thrown together, with a number of British and French soldiers, in the aftermath and turmoil of events that followed the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940. Following an emotional and traumatic escape from the advancing German forces they arrive in England. As a result of their experiences, and the manner that they combated the Nazi regime, the three sisters, all civilians, are seconded, along with the survivors of their group, into the intelligence section of General De Gaulle’s newly formed Free French Force. After extensive training in England they...

Un enregistrement exceptionnel : les cinq volumes des "Misérables", un des plus grands romans de la littérature française, enfin disponibles en livre audio. Jean Valjean, Cosette, les Thénardier, Gavroche, ou encore Javert sont autant de noms qui résonnent au-delà de l'histoire qui les a fait naître. Ces misérables sont décrits à la fois comme des archétypes du genre humain, mais aussi comme les produits d'une société génératrice de pauvreté, d'ignorance et de désespoir.

Virtually all human societies were once organized tribally, yet over time most developed new political institutions which included a central state that could keep the peace and uniform laws that applied to all citizens. Some went on to create governments that were accountable to their constituents. We take these institutions for granted, but they are absent or are unable to perform in many of today’s developing countries—with often disastrous consequences for the rest of the world.

The untold history of a top-secret operation in the run-up to D-Day in which American flyers and Allied spies carried out some of the most daring cloak-and-dagger operations of World War II. In 1943, the OSS—precursor to the CIA—came up with a plan to increase its support to the French...

Dealing with Europe is never easy It's Paris 1919 and the Peace Conference following the end of the Great War is proving anything but peaceful. In fact, it can be murder... A French Diplomat has been murdered. When the chief suspect turns out to be the girlfriend of Aldric 'Spunky' Stephens, Kit Aston is called in to investigate. The investigation becomes a race against time as Europe faces a deadly new enemy, intent on dragging it back into the carnage from which it has just escaped. The Kit Aston mysteries mix real life historical characters and events with crime thrillers full of red ...

Soline Roussel is well schooled in the business of happy endings. For generations her family has kept an exclusive bridal salon in Paris, where magic is worked with needle and thread. It’s said that the bride who wears a Roussel gown is guaranteed a lifetime of joy. But devastating losses during World War II leave Soline’s world and heart in ruins and her faith in love shaken. She boxes up her memories, stowing them away, along with her broken dreams, determined to forget.

Between the end of the Thirty Years' War and the Battle of Waterloo, Europe underwent an extraordinary transformation that saw five of the modern world's great revolutions - scientific, industrial, American, French, and romantic. In this much-admired addition to the monumental Penguin History of Europe series, Tim Blanning brilliantly investigates the forces that transformed Europe from a medieval society into a vigorous powerhouse of the modern world.