Despite the chaos swirling around him, Degas sketches and paints with fervor and manages to reinvent himself and his style, from neoclassical into the emerging world of impressionism. Llewellyn traces the dangerous ascension of the master artist in his impeccably researched, richly imagined Creole Son.
From racial and gender equality fights to the struggle against the draft and the Vietnam war, in 1968 Americans asked questions and fought for their rights. Now, 30 years later, we look back on that seminal year–from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assasination to the Columbia University riots to our changing role among other nations–in this gripping introduction to the events home and abroad. The year we first took steps in space, the year we shaped the present, 1968 presented by a former New York Times writer who lived through it all, shares the story with detail and passion.
Strange as it may seem, the grey, oppressive USSR was founded on a fairytale. It was built on the twentieth-century magic called ‘the planned economy’, which was going to gush forth an abundance of good things that lands of capitalism could never match. And just for a little while, in the heady years of the late 1950’s, the magic seemed to be working.
Red Plenty is about that moment in history, and how it came, and how it went away; about the brief era when, under the rash leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet Union looked forward to a future of rich communists and envious capitalists, when Moscow would out-glitter Manhattan, and every Lada would be better engineered than a Porsche. It’s about the scientists who did their genuinely brilliant best to make the dream come true, it give the tyranny its happy ending. It’s history, it’s fiction. It’s a comedy of ideas, and a novel about the cost of ideas.
By award-winning (and famously unpredictable) author of The Child That Books Built and Backroom Boys, Red Plenty is as ambitious as Sputnik, as uncompromising as an Aeroflot flight attendant – and as different from what you were expecting as a glass of Soviet champagne.
Like its companion volumes, the focus of Fallout is on the scientists themselves — in particular J. Robert Oppenheimer and Leo Szilard, whose lives offer a cautionary tale about the uneasy alliance between the military, the government, and the beginnings of “big science.”
Burr is a portrait of perhaps the most complex and misunderstood of the Founding Fathers. In 1804, while serving as vice president, Aaron Burr fought a duel with his political nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, and killed him. In 1807, he was arrested, tried, and acquitted of treason. In 1833, Burr is newly married, an aging statesman considered a monster by many. Burr retains much of his political influence if not the respect of all. And he is determined to tell his own story. As his amanuensis, he chooses Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler, a young New York City journalist, and together they explore both Burr’s past and the continuing political intrigues of the still young United States.
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.
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. In this captivating biography, 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.
Born into minor German nobility, she transformed herself into an empress by sheer determination. Possessing a brilliant, curious mind, she devoured the works of Enlightenment philosophers, and reaching the throne, tried using their principles to rule the vast, backward empire. She knew or corresponded with notable figures of her time: Voltaire, Diderot, Frederick the Great, Maria Theresa of Austria, Marie Antoinette & John Paul Jones.
Wanting to be the “benevolent despot” Montesquieu idealized, she contended with the deeply ingrained realities of Russian life, including serfdom. She persevered, and for 34 years the government, foreign policy, cultural development and welfare of the Russian people were in her hands. She dealt with domestic rebellion, wars & the tides of political change and violence inspired by the French Revolution. Her reputation depended on the perspective of the speaker. She was praised by Voltaire as like the classical philosophers. She was condemned by enemies, mostly foreign, as “the Messalina of the north.”
Her family, friends, ministers, generals, lovers and enemies are vividly described. These included her ambitious, scheming mother; her weak, bullying husband, Peter (who left her sexually untouched for nine years after their marriage); her unhappy son & heir, Paul; her beloved grandchildren; and her favorites — the young men from whom she sought companionship and the recapture of youth as well as sex. Here, too, is Gregory Potemkin, her most significant lover & possible husband, with whom she shared a correspondence of love & separation, followed by 17 years of unparalleled mutual achievement.
All the qualities that Massie brought to Nicholas & Alexandra and Peter the Great are present: historical accuracy, deep understanding, felicity of style, mastery of detail, ability to shatter myth & a genius for finding and expressing a human drama.
This was the fate of thousands of women and children in the days before slavery was abolished. One man fought to bring freedom and relief from the terrors of the slave trade; it took him forty-five years. His name was William Wilberforce.
This is his exciting story that shows the amazing effect his faith in Christ and his love for people had on transforming a “A story deserving to be told to a new generation.”
Rt. Hon. Tony Blair, Former Prime Minister
“If ever I relived a life in my imagination it was while writing this life of the greatest Christian politician of all time. I travelled with him in my mind to his life as a boy in Hull and on to Cambridge University. I marvelled at the way the Lord reached him and saved his soul. I held my breath as he took on the horrendous slave trade in a three-hour speech before the House of Commons that became one of the greatest speeches in the history of mankind. His eventual triumph over slavery, three days before he died was astounding! The greatest joy I have experienced following the writing of this book has been to see it published in Arabic”
Derick Bingham ~ Was the teaching pastor at Christchurch, Belfast
“The abolition of slavery in the U.K. has an anniversary in the year 2007. This is why teachers, sunday school teachers and children’s workers should make sure they stock up on Wilberforce material in the run up to this. A film on Wilberforce’s life is also being launched in 2006. Make the most of these events and get Christian books into children’s homes on the back of them!”
Catherine MacKenzie ~ Author and CF4K Editornation.
