Download or read book The Rose of Martinique written by Andrea Stuart and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 734 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed biography of Josephine Bonaparte, the Caribbean-born Creole who became the first wife of Napoleon and Empress of France. One of the most remarkable women of the modern era, Josephine Bonaparte was born Rose de Tasher on her family’s sugar plantation in Martinique. She embodied all the characteristics of a true Creole—sensuality, vivacity, and willfulness. Rescued from near starvation, she grew to epitomize the wild decadence of post-revolutionary Paris. It was there that Josephine first caught the eye of Napoleon Bonaparte. A true partner to Napoleon, she was equal parts political adviser, hostess par excellence, confidante, and passionate lover. Josephine managed to be in the forefront of every important episode of her era’s turbulent history: from the rise of the West Indian slave plantations that bankrolled Europe’s rapid economic development, to the decaying of the ancien régime, to the French Revolution itself, from which she barely escaped the guillotine. Using diaries and letters, Andrea Stuart brings her so utterly to life that we finally understand why Napoleon’s last word before dying was the name he had given her: Josephine. “A comprehensive and truly empathetic biography. Andrea Stuart, who was raised in the Caribbean, combines scholarly distance with a genuine attempt to understand her heroine.” —The Washington Post
Download or read book Josephine written by Andrea Stuart and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-05-16 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘It’s a story worthy of a blockbuster novel, and it’s all true. Oodles of sex, passion, adultery, media hype, decadence, plots, murder, mayhem, anguish and betrayal fill these pages . . . an enjoyable, well-researched book; I didn’t want to reach the end’ Edwina Currie, New Statesman Books of the Year One of the most potent icons of female sexuality, Josephine has largely been reduced to an empty cipher, wife to her more famous husband and the butt of one of the oldest jokes around. Yet as Andrea Stuart shows, the girl who grew up on the beautiful island of Martinique endured Caribbean slave revolts, an arranged marriage, and the threat of the guillotine before she even met the man who made her Empress of France. In the grip of turbulent times, Josephine used her intelligence and her allure to forge her way in a Paris that raged and fought and danced its way through revolution and empire. This is the thrilling story of her strength, survival and ultimate transformation.
Download or read book Ambition and Desire written by Kate Williams and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2014-11-04 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From CNN’s official royal historian, a highly praised young author with a doctorate from Oxford University, comes the extraordinary rags-to-riches story of the woman who conquered Napoleon’s heart—and with it, an empire. Their love was legendary, their ambition flagrant and unashamed. Napoleon Bonaparte and his wife, Josephine, came to power during one of the most turbulent periods in the history of France. The story of the Corsican soldier’s incredible rise has been well documented. Now, in this spellbinding, luminous account, Kate Williams draws back the curtain on the woman who beguiled him: her humble origins, her exorbitant appetites, and the tragic turn of events that led to her undoing. Born Marie-Josèphe-Rose de Tascher de La Pagerie on the Caribbean island of Martinique, the woman Napoleon would later call Josephine was the ultimate survivor. She endured a loveless marriage to a French aristocrat—executed during the Reign of Terror—then barely escaped the guillotine blade herself. Her near-death experience only fueled Josephine’s ambition and heightened her determination to find a man who could finance and sustain her. Though no classic beauty, she quickly developed a reputation as one of the most desirable women on the continent. In 1795, she met Napoleon. The attraction was mutual, immediate, and intense. Theirs was an often-tumultuous union, roiled by their pursuit of other lovers but intensely focused on power and success. Josephine was Napoleon’s perfect consort and the object of national fascination. Together they conquered Europe. Their extravagance was unprecedented, even by the standards of Versailles. But she could not produce an heir. Sexual obsession brought them together, but cold biological truth tore them apart. Gripping in its immediacy, captivating in its detail, Ambition and Desire is a true tale of desire, heartbreak, and revolutionary turmoil, engagingly written by one of England’s most praised young historians. Kate Williams’s searing portrait of this alluring and complex woman will finally elevate Josephine Bonaparte to the historical prominence she deserves. Praise for Ambition and Desire “Not just a scholarly work, but a page-turner . . . Williams is no stranger to creating works on strong and influential women, and, as in those works, here she does an admirable job of demystifying Josephine. . . . This engrossing and accessible account is for all readers who enjoy historical biography.”—Library Journal “[A] riveting account . . . Williams perfectly illustrates all that was bizarre and maddening about French life during the reign of Josephine and Napoleon Bonaparte.”—Publishers Weekly “Intelligent and entertaining.”—Kirkus Reviews “An in-depth portrait of the substantive woman behind the throne.”—Booklist “Reading [Ambition and Desire] is like watching Silk Stockings, the 1957 Hollywood masterpiece with Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. The book flows and jumps, taking the reader by the hand through tormented times in French history without ever letting you go or losing itself in the intricacies of French politics.”—The Times “A sparkling account of this most fallible and endearing of women.”—Daily Mail “A whirlwind tour of French history.”—The Telegraph
Download or read book The Many Lives Secret Sorrows of Josephine B written by Sandra Gulland and published by Atria Books. This book was released on 1999-08-03 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this first of three books inspired by the life of Josephine Bonaparte, Sandra Gulland has created a novel of immense and magical proportions. We meet Josephine in the exotic and lush Martinico, where an old island woman predicts that one day she will be queen. The journey from the remote village of her birth to the height of European elegance is long, but Josephine's fortune proves to be true. By way of fictionalized diary entries, we traverse her early years as she marries her one true love, bears his children, and is left betrayed, widowed, and penniless. It is Josephine's extraordinary charm, cunning, and will to survive that catapults her to the heart of society, where she meets Napoleon, whose destiny will prove to be irrevocably intertwined with hers.
Download or read book Josephine written by Eleanor P. Delorme and published by . This book was released on 2002-10 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An anecdotal, illustrated biography of Napoleon Bonaparte's exotic empress discusses Napoleon's dependence on her sense of style to set the tone of his empire, her patrongage of the arts, and significant events in her life.
Download or read book Becoming Josephine written by Heather Webb and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-12-31 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping historical debut about the Creole socialite who transformed herself into an empress Readers are fascinated with the wives of famous men. In Becoming Josephine, debut novelist Heather Webb follows Rose Tascher as she sails from her Martinique plantation to Paris, eager to enjoy an elegant life at the royal court. Once there, however, Rose’s aristocratic soldier-husband dashes her dreams by abandoning her amid the tumult of the French Revolution. After narrowly escaping death, Rose reinvents herself as Josephine, a beautiful socialite wooed by an awkward suitor—Napoleon Bonaparte. “A debut as bewitching as its protagonist.” —Erika Robuck, author of Hemingway’s Girl and Call Me Zelda “Vivid and passionate.” —Susan Spann, author of The Shinobi Mysteries From the Trade Paperback edition.
Download or read book Sugar in the Blood written by Andrea Stuart and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2013 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of an acclaimed biography of Josephine Bonaparte: a stunning history of the interdependence of sugar, slavery, and colonial settlement in the New World--from the 17th century to the present.
Download or read book The Rose of Martinique written by Andrea Stuart and published by Atlantic Monthly Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles the life of Josephine Bonaparte, discussing her isolated Caribbean childhood, introduction into society, love affair with Napoleon, and other related topics.
Download or read book The Secret Life of Josephine written by Carolly Erickson and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-09-04 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surviving a violent past to become the wife of General Bonaparte, Josephine, an exotic Caribbean-Creole woman, rises even further in status when her husband crowns himself emperor but is unable to forget a mysterious stranger who won her heart in girlhood.
Download or read book Obeah and Other Martinican Stories written by Marie-Magdeleine Carbet and published by MSU Press. This book was released on 2017-04-01 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume comprises French versions and English translations of seven short stories written by Marie-Magdeleine Carbet, Martinique’s most prolific woman writer. Four of these stories are previously unpublished, culled from documents obtained from Carbet’s niece. While analyses of the literature of the French Caribbean have tended to portray these people typically as suffering from pathologies of colonial oppression, the situations and reflections presented in these stories offer different perspectives on the lives and concerns of ordinary Martinicans and thus provide insight into some of the missing links of the sociocultural scene. This unique, multifaceted text fills an important pedagogical and scholarly need, and allows the reader to access the daily lives of French Caribbeans in a significantly authentic way.
Download or read book Josephine written by Carolly Erickson and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2000-08-17 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie, born a Creole on the island of Martinique in the French West Indies, became one of the best known and most envied women who ever lived. Sent to France to make an advantageous marriage to a young aristocrat, her naivete and lack of education left her ill prepared to deal with the sophisticated - if decadent - world of pre-Revolutionary Paris. Treated cruelly by her shallow young husband, her life had become a nightmare during the Terror, in which she was imprisoned and almost lost her life. It was during this period that she honed the skills of manipulation and seduction that would lead her from the dungeons of the terror into the beds of the post-Revolutionary powerbrokers, including the Corsican corporal who would conquer Europe. As the wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, conqueror of Europe and the wonder of his age, Josephine was assumed to be a worthy consort for her astounding husband, a woman as beautiful, wise and altogether remarkable as he was charismatic, brilliant, and invincible in battle. When in 1804 she knelt before Napoleon in Notre Dame and he placed the imperial crown on her head, making her Empress of France, her extraordinary destiny seemed to be fulfilled. The unknown woman from Martinique became the highest ranking woman in the land, as far above the average Frenchwoman as Napoleon himself was above the humblest soldier in his armies. Yet the truth behind the glorious symbolism in Notre Dame was much darker. For the eight-year marriage between Josephine and Napoleon had long been corroded by infidelity and abuse, and for years Josephine had dreaded that her husband would divorce her. Far from the love match previous biographers have described, Erickson's Napoleon and Josephine were the ultimate pragmatists, drawn together by political necessity while their emotions were engaged elsewhere. Carolly Erickson, the critically acclaimed biographer of the Tudor monarchs, as well as of Marie Antoinette and Queen Victoria, using her trademark ability to penetrate and explain the psychological make-up of her subjects, paints a fascinating portrait of an immensely complex and ultimately tragic woman.
Download or read book Flowers Art Bouquets written by Sixtine Dubly and published by Assouline Publishing. This book was released on 2016-05-01 with total page 5 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Be it a single delicate bud in a simple clear vase or an explosion of colorful blossoms, a brilliant bouquet accents an atmosphere and brightens the mood like nothing else. The beauty of flowers has inspired artists, designers, poets, and myriad other creators for centuries: the Dutch masters of the 1600s and impressionist painters from Manet to Van Gogh, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, botanical illustrator Georg Dionysius Ehret, even the inimitable Andy Warhol. Flowers: Art & Bouquets showcases a glorious profusion of floral images and interpretations across a spectrum of artistic media and time periods. Design writer Sixtine Dubly chronicles the evolution of floral design in this remarkable compendium, which also features stunning work by more than forty contemporary floral artists in London, Paris, and New York, from minimalist to elaborate. This treasury of gorgeous imagery blooms in resplendent color before the reader’s eyes.
Download or read book Josephine s Garden written by Stephanie Parkyn and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2019-12-03 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Stephanie Parkyn is one very talented storyteller.' -Mrs B's Book Reviews '...impressed by Parkyn's imaginative ambition. She takes Napoleon's wife, the Empress Josephine, and intertwines her struggles to provide the Emperor with an heir, with those of two other women... The novel is rich in detail, particularly of horticulture and has a strong storyline. A perfect escape without ever leaving our shores.' Waikato Times France, 1794. In the aftermath of the bloody end to the French Revolution, Rose de Beauharnais stumbles from prison on the day she is to be guillotined. Within a decade, she'll transform into the scandalous socialite who marries Napoleon Bonaparte, become Empress Josephine of France and build a garden of wonders with plants and animals she gathers from across the globe. But she must give Bonaparte an heir or she risks losing everything. Two other women from very different spheres are tied to the fate of the Empress Josephine - Marthe Desfriches and Anne Serreaux. Their lives are put at risk as they each face confronting obstacles in their relationships and in their desire to become mothers. From the author of Into the World comes a richly imagined historical novel about obsession, courage, love and marriage. 'Enthralling novel, rich in historical detail ... Highly recommended.' -Good Reading on Into the World
Download or read book The Struggle of Non Sovereign Caribbean Territories written by H. Adlai Murdoch and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-12 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Struggle of Non-Sovereign Caribbean Territories is an essay collection made up of two sections; in the first, a group of anglophone and francophone scholars examines the roots, effects and implications of the major social upheaval that shook Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, and Réunion in February and March of 2009. They clearly demonstrate the critical role played by community activism, art and media to combat politico-economic policies that generate (un)employment, labor exploitation, and unattended health risks, all made secondary to the supremacy of profit. In the second section, additional scholars provide in-depth analyses of the ways in which an insistence on capital accumulation and centralization instantiated broad hierarchies of market-driven profit, capital accumulation, and economic exploitation upon a range of populations and territories in the wider non-sovereign and nominally sovereign Caribbean from Haiti to the Dutch Antilles to Puerto Rico, reinforcing the racialized patterns of socioeconomic exclusion and privatization long imposed by France on its former colonial territories.
Download or read book Empire s Crossroads written by Carrie Gibson and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-06-19 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Empire's Crossroads, Carrie Gibson offers readers a vivid, authoritative and action-packed history of the Caribbean. For Gibson, everything was created in the West Indies: the Europe of today, its financial foundations built with sugar money: the factories and mills built as a result of the work of slaves thousands of miles away; the idea of true equality as espoused in Saint Domingue in the 1790s; the slow progress to independence; and even globalization and migration, with the ships passing to and fro taking people and goods in all possible directions, hundreds of years before the term 'globalization' was coined. From Cuba to Haiti, from Dominica to Martinique, from Jamaica to Trinidad, the story of the Caribbean is not simply the story of slaves and masters - but of fortune-seekers and pirates, scientists and servants, travellers and tourists. It is not only a story of imperial expansion - European and American - but of global connections, and also of life as it is lived in the islands, both in the past and today.
Download or read book Rose Rose I Love You written by Chen-ho Wang and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1998-04-16 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this lively translation of Wang Chen-ho's ribald satire, a Taiwanese village loses all perspective—and common sense—at the prospect of fleecing a shipload of lusty and lonely American soldiers. A rotund, excitable high school English teacher receives word that 300 GIs are coming from Vietnam for a weekend of R and R. He persuades the owners of the Big 4 brothels that they will all take in more U.S. dollars if the pleasure girls can speak a little English; his plan is to train fifty specially selected prostitutes in a "Crash Course for Bar Girls." The teacher, Dong Siwen (his name means "refinement") enlists the eager support of local Councilman Qian and the managers of such elite establishments as Night Fragrances and Valley of Joy. "If the girls learn how to say three things in English— Hello, How are you? and Want to do you-know-what? everything is A-OK!" But what begins as a simple plan to teach a few English phrases quickly becomes absurdly elaborate: courses will include an "Introduction to American Culture," a crash course on global etiquette, and a workshop in personal hygiene taught by Dr. "Venereal" Wang. Siwen, a virgin himself, dreads any bad P.R. from "Saigon Rose" (slang for a particularly virulent strain of v.d.) and so demands the finest conveniences and conditions for "servicing the Yanks." "Sanitation above all.... Do you think U.S. dollars will float out of their pockets in crummy rooms like that?" The Americans must not leave with a poor impression of Taiwan; not only Dong Siwen and the Big 4 but the entire nation would lose face. One of the most carefully wrought narratives in contemporary Chinese literature, Rose, Rose, I Love You will appeal not only to readers of fiction but also to those interested in Taiwanese identity and the effects of Westernization on Asian society.
Download or read book History is a Set of Lies Agreed Upon Writings about the Great Napoleon Bonaparte written by Various and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2021-05-06 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “History is a Set of Lies Agreed Upon” is a collection of biographical sketches of the French military and political leader Napoléon Bonaparte, by various authors. Napoléon Bonaparte (1769–1821) was a French political and military leader during the Revolutionary Wars who ruled as Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814, and again in 1815. Winning the vast amount of battles against a series of coalitions in the Napoleonic Wars, he was able to establish a large empire covering continental Europe that lasted until its collapse in 1815. Napoléon is regarded as being among the greatest military commanders in history, and is still a celebrated yet controversial political figure. These fascinating biographical sketches offer details on various aspects of Napoléon's life, from his early military campaigns to the women who had most influence of his life. Highly recommended for those with an interest in the life of Napoléon Bonaparte and European history in general. Contents include: “The Death of Napoleon, by Isaac Mclellan”, “Napoleon I (Bonaparte), by Pierre-Louis-Théophile-Georges Goyau”, “Biographical Sketch, by Ida M. Tarbell”, “Napoleon — Man of the World, by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, “Napoleon Bonaparte, by Sarah Knowles Bolton”, “Napoleon and Marie Walewska, by Lyndon Orr”, “The Story of Pauline Bonaparte, by Lyndon Orr”, “Napoleon's Will”, and “Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte, by Richard Whately”. Read & Co. History is proudly publishing this brand new collection complete with the poem “The Death of Napoleon” by Isaac Mclellan.
