The subversive art of Zelda Fitzgerald

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Mireille Blanchet-Douspis

L'influence de l'histoire contemporaine dans l'¿uvre de Marguerite Yourcenar propose de montrer que, loin d'e tre seulement un e crivain classique qui s'inte resse a l'histoire du passe , Marguerite Yourcenar ne cesse d'e voquer l'histoire contemporaine et en subit nettement l'influence. La confrontation avec les historiens re ve le que Le Labyrinthe du monde refle te avec fide lite les e ve nements politiques, les re alite s sociales et les mentalite s du XIXe me et du de but du XXe me sie cles. Dans la repre sentation des sie cles passe s se profilent tre s fre quemment les pre occupations que vivent les contempora.

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Patricia West

"Focusing on George Washington's Mount Vernon, Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House, Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, and the Booker T. Washington National Monument, Patricia West shows how historic houses reflect less the lives and times of their famous inhabitants than the political pressures of the eras during which they were transformed into museums. In the late 1850s, the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association evoked a mythologized George Washington to campaign for the "rescue" of his home, glossing over his role as a slaveholder to appeal to patrons on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. In 1912, the establishment of Orchard House as a museum paid homage to Alcott's novel Little Women and unified the Woman's Club of Concord, Massachusetts, which was bitterly divided over women's suffrage. In the 1920s and 1930s, Monticello became a touchstone for professional house restoration and an idealized Thomas Jefferson a focal point for a rift-weary Democratic Party. During the 1950s, the birthplace of Booker T. Washington became a monument created largely by politicians besieged by conflicts over civil rights." "In Domesticating History, West contends that house museum founders, while claiming to create sites strictly devoted to individual lives, were in fact establishing monuments steeped in the issues of their times."--BOOK JACKET.

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August Sander

"With People of the 20th Century, August Sander created a monumental work that is unique in the history of photography and a classic of photographic literature. Sander conceived this large-scale project, which he ultimately never completed, in the 1920s. He was to spend the rest of his life working on it, his objective nothing less than a complete typological portrait of contemporary society. Hundreds of portraits classified according to professional, social or family criteria were to provide a representative picture of the various social groups. He envisaged seven groups labeled: "The Farmer", "The Skilled Tradesman", "The Woman", "Classes and Professions", "The Artists", "The City" and--on the theme of age, illness and death--"The Last People". We have now condensed out 2002 seven-volume edition of the artist's complete oeuvre into one large volume presenting "the essential" People of the 20th Century."--Publisher description.

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Edward R. Ford

v.1, covering 1890-1932, focuses on various recognized architects, explaining the detailing and construction techniques that distort, camouflage, or enhance a building. v.2 continues the study of the relationships of the ideals of design and the realities of construction in modern architecture from the late 1920s to the present.