The field of the cloth of gold

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Irmgard Keun

"Sanna and her ravishing friend Gerti would rather speak of love than politics, but in 1930s Frankfurt, politics cannot be escaped--even in the lady's bathroom. Crossing town one evening to meet up with Gerti's Jewish lover, a blockade cuts off the girls' path--it is the Furher in a motorcade procession, and the crowd goes mad striving to catch a glimpse of Hitler's raised "empty hand." Then the parade is over, and in the long hours after midnight Sanna and Gerti will face betrayal, death, and the heartbreaking reality of being young in an era devoid of innocence or romance. In 1937, German author Irmgard Keun had only recently fled Nazi Germany with her lover Joseph Roth when she wrote this slim, exquisite, and devastating book. It captures the unbearable tension, contradictions, and hysteria of pre-war Germany like no other novel. Yet even as it exposes human folly, the book exudes a hopeful humanism. It is full of humor and light, even as it describes the first moments of a nightmare. After Midnight is a masterpiece that deserves to be read and remembered anew"--

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Luciano Canfora

This history traces the development of democracy in Europe from its origins in ancient Greece up to the present day. Considers all the major watersheds in the development of democracy in modern Europe. Describes the rediscovery of Ancient Greek political ideals by intellectuals at the end of the eighteenth century. Examines the twenty-year crisis from 1789 to 1815, when the repercussions of revolution in France were felt across the European continent. Explains how events in France led to the explosion of democratic movements between 1830 and 1848. Compares the different manifestations of democracy within Eastern and Western Europe during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Considers fascism and its consequences for democracy in Europe during the twentieth century. Demonstrates how in the recent past democracy itself has become the object of ideological battles.

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Noble E. Cunningham, Jr

"To mark the two-hundredth anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's inauguration into the presidency, Noble E. Cunningham, Jr., presents The Inaugural Addresses of President Thomas Jefferson, 1801 and 1805. Of all the addresses delivered by presidents of the United States at their inaugurations, few have been as memorable as those given by Thomas Jefferson. In addition to providing the texts of President Jefferson's first and second presidential inaugural addresses, delivered on March 4, 1801 and March 4, 1805, this volume explores their dissemination and impact worldwide.". "While President Jefferson's addresses are well known, the extent to which they were published and distributed, and the responses to them by both individuals and governments, has not previously been considered. In a world where the new republican government of the United States represented a major departure from the dominant monarchical governments of Europe, the recognition given to Jefferson's inaugural addresses in Europe and elsewhere is of considerable significance. His addresses were widely published in newspapers and journals not only in the United States and Canada, but also in Great Britain, France, Italy, and other European states, as well as later republished in South America." "The Inaugural Addresses of President Thomas Jefferson, 1801 and 1805 provides evidence of the massive extent to which Jefferson's addresses have been translated and reprinted, attesting to his international stature as an early spokesman for democratic principles."--BOOK JACKET.

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Antony Thomas

Cecil Rhodes conquered an area the size of England, Germany, France, and the Low Countries combined, adding a million square miles to Britain's African Empire and lending his name to a new country - Rhodesia. By age thirty-four, Rhodes had founded the DeBeers Company, achieving a worldwide monopoly on diamond production. He went on to earn a second fortune in gold, becoming the richest man in the western world before he was forty. A stalwart patriot and racist, Rhodes laid the foundations of modern apartheid and drew Britain into the bloody Boer War. He mercilessly pinned Africa under his control, believing it England's duty to colonize the world. Today, the monopolies are gone, apartheid is over, and Rhodes, once a hero, has been decried as a racist and imperialist whose only remaining legacy is the scholarship that bears his name. Antony Thomas's biography of Cecil Rhodes is the study of an idealist corrupted by power and of a nation forced under England's control against its will.