A history of Huguenots in the United States.

The surprising story of the wine industry’s role in the rise of French Algeria and the fall of empire. “We owe to wine a blessing far more precious than gold: the peopling of Algeria with Frenchmen,” stated agriculturist Pierre Berthault in the early 1930s. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, Europeans had displaced Algerians from the colony’s best agricultural land and planted grapevines. Soon enough, wine was the primary export of a region whose mostly Muslim inhabitants didn’t drink alcohol. Settlers made fortunes while drawing large numbers of Algerians into salaried work for the first time. But the success of Algerian wine resulted in friction with French producers, challenging the traditional view that imperial possessions should complement, not compete with, the metropole. By the middle of the twentieth century, amid the fight for independence, Algerians had come to see the rows of vines as an especially hated symbol of French domination. After the war, Algerians had to decide how far they would go to undo the transformations the colonists had wrought—including the world’s fourth-biggest wine industry. Owen White examines Algeria’s experiment with nationalized wine production in worker-run vineyards, the pressures that resulted in the failure of that experiment, and the eventual uprooting of most of the country’s vines. With a special focus on individual experiences of empire, from the wealthiest Europeans to the poorest laborers in the fields, The Blood of the Colony shows the central role of wine in the economic life of French Algeria and in its settler culture. White makes clear that the industry left a long-term mark on the development of the nation.

Divided into four volumes, Race and Ethnicity in America provides a complete overview of the history of racial and ethnic relations in America, from pre-contact to the present. The five hundred years since Europeans made contact with the indigenous peoples of America have been dominated by racial and ethnic tensions. During the colonial period, from 1500 to 1776, slavery and servitude of whites, blacks, and Indians formed the foundation for race and ethnic relations. After the American Revolution, slavery, labor inequalities, and immigration led to racial and ethnic tensions; after the Civil War, labor inequalities, immigration, and the fight for civil rights dominated America's racial and ethnic experience. From the 1960s to the present, the unfulfilled promise of civil rights for all ethnic and racial groups in America has been the most important sociopolitical issue in America. Race and Ethnicity in America tells this story of the fight for equality in America. The first volume spans pre-contact to the American Revolution; the second, the American Revolution to the Civil War; the third, Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement; and the fourth, the Civil Rights Movement to the present. All volumes explore the culture, society, labor, war and politics, and cultural expressions of racial and ethnic groups.

Americans have long had a rich if complicated relationship with France. They adore all things French, especially food and fashion. They visit the country and learn the language. Historically, Americans have also been quick to blame France at certain times of international crisis, and find fault with their handling of domestic issues. Despite ups and downs, the friendship between the countries remains very strong. The author explains the strength of Franco-American relations lies in the diplomatic ties that extend back to the founding of the United States, but more importantly, in the French DNA that is imprinted on American culture. The French were the first Europeans to settle the regions now known as Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas--and Frenchman remained in Louisiana after the land was purchased by the United States. This book explores the effects that France has had on American culture, and why modern Americans of French descent are so fascinated by their ancestry.

Hill contends that French officials in the postwar decade had already perceived a deep-rooted Amer. indifference, even hostility, to a number of vital French nat. interests. The author examines the harsh disappointments & frustrations these officials experienced in their dealings with Amer. in the 1780s, whether on the high seas, or in U.S. courts & customs houses, in the halls of Congress, or in their encounters with Amer. attitudes. These essays add to what is already known about France's difficulties with the U.S. in this era. Not so well known, however, are: how French officials perceived these problems; what solutions they sought; or how keenly frustrated they became when, despite Amer. protestations of gratitude for French assistance during the war for independence, they found self-interested Amer. unwilling to heed the least claims of an erstwhile ally.

Set during World War I, this monumental philosophical novel about human despair inspired Albert Camus' own writing and prefigured the greater existential movement. Blood Dark tells the story of a brilliant philosopher trapped in a provincial town and of his spiraling descent into self-destruction. Cripure, as his students call him—the name a mocking contraction of Critique of Pure Reason—despises his colleagues, despairs of his charges, and is at odds with his family. The year is 1917, and the slaughter of the First World War goes on and on, with French soldiers not only dying in droves but also beginning to rise up in protest. Still haunted by the memory of the wife who left him long ago, Cripure turns his fury and scathing wit on everyone around him. Before he knows it, a trivial dispute with a complacently patriotic colleague has embroiled him in a duel.