A strinking account of the impact of the French Revolution in Paris, across the French countryside, and around the globeThe French Revolution has fascinated, perplexed, and inspired for more than two centuries. It was a seismic event that radically transformed France and launched shock waves across the world. In this provocative new history, Peter McPhee draws on a lifetime's study of eighteenth-century France and Europe to create an entirely fresh account of the w...

This volume collects together a wide selection of primary texts that explain the processes behind the enormous changes undergone by France and Europe between 1787 and 1815, from the origins of the Revolution to the counterrevolution and from Marie-Antoinette to Bonaparte.The achievements, terror and drama of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic period restructured politics and society on a grand scale, making this the defining moment for modern European history. While bringing t...

The French countryside is as beloved by the many millions of tourists who visit it each year as it is of French people themselves. But it has not always looked like it does today. An Environmental History of France instead presents the countryside in which people live and work and through which they travel as a human creation across 250 years of economic and cultural change, war and revolution. It is a book about the 'making' of the French landscape and an engross...

This volume provides a lively and authoritative synthesis of recent work on the social history of France and is now thoroughly updated to cover the 'long nineteenth century' from 1789-1914. Peter McPhee offers both a readable narrative and a distinctive, coherent argument about this remarkable century and explores key themes such as:- Peasant interaction with the environment- The changing experience of work and leisure- The nature of crime and protest- Changing...

This book provides a succinct yet up-to-date and challenging approach to the French Revolution of 1789-1799 and its consequences. Peter McPhee provides an accessible and reliable overview and one which deliberately introduces students to central debates among historians. The book has two main aims. One aim is to consider the origins and nature of the Revolution of 1789-99. Why was there a Revolution in France in 1789? Why did the Revolution follow its particular course after 1789? When was...

The French Revolution has fascinated, perplexed, and inspired for more than two centuries. It was a seismic event that radically transformed France and launched shock waves across the world. In this provocative new history, Peter McPhee draws on a lifetime's study of eighteenth-century France and Europe to create an entirely fresh account of the world's first great modern revolution—its origins, drama, complexity, and significance.Was the Revolution a major turning point in French—...

In the 19th century, the British and Russian empires were engaged in bitter rivalry for the acquisition of Southern Asian. Although India was the ultimate prize, most of the intrigue and action took place along its northern frontier in Afghanistan, Turkestan, and Tibet. Mapping the region and gaining knowledge of the enemy were crucial to the interests of both sides.The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India began in the eighteenth century with the aim of creating a detailed map of ...

Between 1539 and 1542, the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto led a small army on an expedition of almost four thousand miles across Southeastern America. De Soto's path had been one of history's most intriguing mysteries until the publication of Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun. Using a new route reconstruction, anthropologist Charles Hudson maps the story of the de Soto expedition, tying the route to a number of specific archaeological sites.De Soto's journey cut a b...

Blood and Money tells the story of money as a history of violence and human bondage.In most accounts of the origins of money we are offered pleasant tales in which it arises to the mutual benefit of all parties as a result of barter. In this groundbreaking study David McNally reveals the true story of money’s origins and development as one of violence and human bondage. Money’s emergence and its transformation are shown to be intimately connected to the buying and selling ...

In this Pulitzer Prize–finalist biography, the author of Mad at the World examines the little-known life of the man behind the well-known bird survey.John James Audubon is renowned for his masterpiece of natural history and art, The Birds of America, the first nearly comprehensive survey of the continent's birdlife. And yet few people understand, and many assume incorrectly, what sort of man he was. How did the illegitimate son of a French sea cap...

Powerful and riveting, this Newbery Honor–winning narrative describes the illness known as yellow fever, the toll it took on the nation’s capital—and the eventual triumph over the disease.Long before Covid and the West Nile virus, yellow fever was a medical mystery that forced thousands in Philadelphia, the nation’s temporary capital, to flee and brought the workings of the federal government to a virtual halt. An American Plague is a riveting account of t...