Child of materialism and positivism, Courbet was without a doubt one of the most complex painters of the nineteenth century. Symbolising the rejection of traditions, Courbet did not hesitate to confront the public with the truth by liberating painting of conventional rules. He became from then on the leader of pictorial realism.

Harp uses the familiar figure of Bibendum and the promotional campaigns designed around him to analyze the cultural assumptions of "belle-epoque" France, including representations of gender, race and class. He also considers Michelin's efforts to promote automobile tourism in France and Europe through its famous "Red Guide" (first introduced in 1900), noting that, in the aftermath of World War I, the company sold tour guides to the battlefields of the Western Front and favourably positioned France's participation in the war as purely defensive and unavoidable. Throughout this period, the company successfully identified the name of Michelin with many aspects of French society, from cuisine and local culture to nationalism and colonialism.

The hardcover edition of volume 8 was published in 1994. This paperback edition is the eighth and final volume to be published in the UNESCO General History of Africa. Volume 8 examines the period from 1935 to the present, and details the role of African states in the Second World War and the rise of postwar Africa. This is one of the most important books in the entire series, and as such, it is an unabridged paperback.

In reaction to the centralizing nation-building efforts of states in nineteenth-century Europe, many regions began to define their own identity. In thirteen stimulating essays, specialists analyze why regional identities became widely celebrated towards the end of that century and why some considered themselves part of the new national self-image.

How and why do we think about food, taste it, and cook it? While much has been written about the concept of terroir as it relates to wine, in this vibrant, personal book, Amy Trubek, a pioneering voice in the new culinary revolution, expands the concept of terroir beyond wine and into cuisine and culture more broadly. Bringing together lively stories of people farming, cooking, and eating, she focuses on a series of examples ranging from shagbark hickory nuts in Wisconsin and maple syrup in Vermont to wines from northern California. She explains how the complex concepts of terroir and goût de terroir are instrumental to France's food and wine culture and then explores the multifaceted connections between taste and place in both cuisine and agriculture in the United States. How can we reclaim the taste of place, and what can it mean for us in a country where, on average, any food has traveled at least fifteen hundred miles from farm to table? Written for anyone interested in food, this book shows how the taste of place matters now, and how it can mediate between our local desires and our global reality to define and challenge American food practices.

This is the first full academic study of the political thought of the French regionalist movement in the Belle Epoque. Julian Wright has examined the private papers of Jean Charles-Brun, founder of the Federation Regionaliste Francaise, in detail. He has rethought the conceptual basis ofregionalism through Charles-Brun's intellectual biography, showing that it penetrated the political debates of the period as a commonplace in Republican arguments about state reform. Despite the often made association of regionalism with the right, Dr Wright reveals the diversity of political viewsexpressed, and demonstrates that the connection to left-wing federalism ws emphatically present in the intellectual background.Interwoven with this discussion is an examination of the personal mission of Charles-Brun. He saw himself as a reconciler, using his regionalism within a mission to heal the divisions of French politics and society. He argued that France's instability stemmed from an obsession with reforms thatfollowed a priori political models, and that politicians who sought to rethink the shape of the Republic needed to attend to the cultural or economic realities expressed in France's regions. Charles-Brun and his regionalist movement continue to have resonance in current debates aboutdecentralization in France.

In the classic French novel The Passionate Epicure, Marcel Rouff introduces Dodin-Bouffant, a character based loosely on Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, an infamous bachelor and epicure dedicated to the high arts: the art of food and the art of love. This edition contains a Preface by Lawrence Durrell and a new Intro-duction by Jeffrey Steingarten, the food critic for Vogue magazine and author of the bestselling book The Man Who Ate Everything.