Sexuality in world history

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Andrew Shail and Gillian Howie

"This collection brings menstruation into the new feminist history of the body. From Aristotle to twentieth-century gynaecological texts, the chapters analyse the ways in which menstruation has been understood inside and beyond Western culture. The twenty studies examine how mythical and scientific knowledges of the body work to produce popular notions about femaleness. They chart the ways in which the historical alteration of menstruation - from magical act through sign of lesser maleness, polluting spiritual weakness, index of sexed being, hygienic calamity, act of consumer flow, to pathological deficiency - has influenced and reflected our relationship with this most ideologically-laden form of blood. They reveal how many cultures and historical periods have pivoted notions of health and sexed identity on ideas about menstruation and expose that, through our cultural texts, we are talking about menstruation all the time."--Jacket.

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Alexandre Dumas

In seventeenth-century France, young D'Artagnan initially quarrels with, then befriends, three musketeers and joins them in trying to outwit the enemies of the king and queen. Illustrated notes throughout the text explain the historical background of the story.

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Caroline Piquet

A l'évocation de la Compagnie du canal de Suez, surgissent les figures de Ferdinand de Lesseps, du colonel Nasser ou encore de Claude François traversant le canal à la nage. Souvent dénoncée comme un " État dans l'État " par les Égyptiens, cette entreprise fut chargée d'assurer le creusement du canal maritime en 1859 et son exploitation à partir de 1869 ; elle s'affirma comme un outil de développement de la région mais aussi, dans le contexte des empires coloniaux et de l'émergence de l'État moderne en Égypte, comme un enjeu politique et culturel. L'histoire de la Compagnie du canal de Suez en Égypte débute véritablement à partir de 1888, date de la conférence de Constantinople qui affirme sa neutralité et son statut international pour ne plus constituer de litige entre le Royaume Uni et la France. Elle peut désormais se consacrer pleinement à l'exploitation commerciale de la concession jusqu'en 1956, date à laquelle Gamal Abdel Nasser annonce la nationalisation du canal de Suez. Mobilisant des fonds privés inédits et des archives françaises ou étrangères, cet ouvrage étudie l'entreprise dans ses rapports avec les autorités politiques et dans son bilan économique pour l'Égypte. Il propose aussi un portrait riche et précis de l'action des ingénieurs et des ouvriers qui y contribuèrent. A travers l'urbanisme, l'éducation et les missions religieuses, il décrit enfin l'œuvre " colonisatrice " de la compagnie. Il est ainsi question de l'histoire d'une entreprise prestigieuse où se mêlaient service maritime international et intérêt national égyptien, où l'on parlait français, arabe, italien et grec, métaphore à elle seule de ce que fut la Méditerranée aux XIXe et XXe siècles.--

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Alan E. Steinweis

On November 7, 1938, a Jewish teenager, Herschel Grynszpan, fatally shot a German diplomat in Paris. Within three days anti Jewish violence erupted throughout Germany, initially incited by local Nazi officials, and ultimately sanctioned by the decisions of Hitler and Goebbels at the pinnacle of the Third Reich. As synagogues burned and Jews were beaten in the streets, police stood aside. Men, women, and children, many neighbors of the victims, participated enthusiastically in acts of violence, rituals of humiliation, and looting. By the night of November 10th, a nationwide antisemitic pogrom had inflicted massive destruction on synagogues, Jewish schools, and Jewish owned businesses. During and after this spasm of violence and plunder, 30,000 Jewish men were rounded up and sent to concentration camps, where hundreds would perish in the following months. Kristallnacht revealed to the world the intent and extent of Nazi Judeophobia. However, it was seen essentially as the work of the Nazi leadership. Now, the author counters that view in his vision of Kristallnacht as a veritable pogrom, a popular cathartic convulsion of antisemitic violence that was manipulated from above but executed from below by large numbers of ordinary Germans rioting in the streets, heckling and taunting Jews, cheering Stormtroopers' hostility, and looting Jewish property on a massive scale. Based on original research in the trials of the pogrom's perpetrators and the testimonies of its Jewish survivors, the author brings to light the evidence of mob action by all sectors of the civilian population. This work reveals the true depth and nature of popular antisemitism in Nazi Germany on the eve of the Holocaust.