Book Description
This biography of the legendary mistress of King Louis XV offers dramatic insight into the life of one of the most enchanting, powerful, and feared women to grace the world's stage. Groomed from an early age to assume the role of a rich man's mistress, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson underwent several transformations before she caught the heart of the king himself. Although accustomed to the king's extramarital relationships, the court was shocked at the sudden ascension of the low-born Mademoiselle Poisson. The newcomer, however, wasted no time in establishing herself as the king's sole confidante and, ultimately, his indispensable partner in affairs of state. The critically acclaimed author of Philippe, Duc d'Orleans, Christine Pevitt Algrant traces Madame de Pompadour from her modest beginnings in early-eighteenth-century Paris to her reign as the undisputed mistress of Versailles. Filled with photographs, and evocative and insightful in its telling, Madame de Pompadour is a seductive portrait of one of the most fascinating and influential women of the age.
Customer Reviews:
Loved it!!!.......2007-09-04
Really enjoyed reading about this amazing woman. I think the French monarchy was amazing in their choice of mistresses -- I would have hated being a wife!
Apres moi, le deluge.......2003-09-08
Louis XV, historically France's "bien-aime, is rendered here the "bien-damne." Algrant's vision cuts deeply across historical accounts of both the king and his mistress. Students of French literature will recognize Madame de Pompadour portrayed as the intelligent and enlightened patroness of the arts.
That the seeds of Louis XVI's demise were sown in the reign of Louis XV is not news. However, the degree of Louis XV's dereliction of duty and almost lecherous exploitation of teenage concubines portrays him beyond merely oblivious to the state of his country. He becomes almost "Nero-esque."
While Louis XV "fiddled," Madame de Pompadour "burned" passionately with grandiose political schemes taking on the role of Prime Minister. Her political disasters drained France of both blood and money as she waged war against England and Prussia simultaneously. Additionally the monarch and former mistress carried on an aggressive building program. It is apparent why she was so greatly despised by the general French population, and remarkable that the French Revolution was delayed until some twenty-five years after her death. I cannot improve on a comment offered by Alistair Horne "...Madame de Pompadour makes you hear the rattle of the tumbrels, just thirty years down the road."
A Very Politically Involved Mistress.......2003-03-20
I was hoping for insight on more of the private life of Pompadour; instead, I got a very in-depth account of her political involvement. These were so detailed that at times, I tired of the seemingly endless political escapades Pompadour was a involved in. Sometimes, the book felt more like a biography 18th century French politics rather than the life of Pompadour. Her life was abrupt and her time as the romantic love of Louis XV's even shorter. After it was obvious that Louis XV no longer looked to her as a romantic partner, Pompadour positioned herself as a confidant, a friend, an advisor, among many other roles. This made her a very well-known woman in French royal society; some dubbed her as the Prime Minister of France, others called her the true Queen. While this book was well researched and well written, I still feel that it's a pity that this book focused more on her foray into politics rather than the overall doings of her private life.
Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Maitresse du Roi.......2003-02-01
Madame Pompadour broke through an enormous social barrier for women of society - she was the first of the bourgeoisie to be appointed "official mistress" to a French King. (Even in the Court of Versailles, women faced glass ceilings). Her relationship with Louis XV, a man of immense carnal appetites, was hardly the stuff of which romance is made: she was groomed for her role by a clique of favor-seeking investment bankers, who duly cashed in when she achieved influence. Pompadour's real talent - and greatest legacy - was her patronage of arts and literature, most notably Boucher and Voltaire, but also the fine arts such as the porcelain works as Sevres. Her role in policy, on the other hand, was hardly beneficial in the long run: for all the talented ministers she was able to promote, none of them solved the profound inequities of ancien regime France. What, though, could be expected under the reign of Louis XV? As Pevitt demonstrates, he must qualify as one of history's most boorish (and depraved) leaders. This is a well-balanced biography - giving all due credit to Pompadour's good taste and cultured eye, yet ruthless in exposing her pettiness and pretentiousness.
INCISIVE AND THOROUGHLY RESEARCHED.......2002-09-18
Remembered today in narratives of the past, heralded in poetry and song, Madame de Pompadour, born Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson in 1721, continues to be a fascinating and enigmatic figure.
The daughter of a mother noted for her beauty and high spirits, Jeanne inherited both of these qualities. In addition, a fortune teller predicted that the little girl would one day be the mistress of Louis XV. This foretelling Jeanne later told Voltaire "struck her with the force of a thunderbolt." And, it was a prophecy that the young woman seemed hellbent on fulfilling.
Christine Pevitt Algrant's comprehensive and cogent portrait of the woman who would, indeed, become the most potent force in the court of Louis XV is a welcome addition to the annals of history, as it includes a telling picture of a troubled France.
Courtiers were shocked when the humbly born Poisson became recognized as the king's maitresse declaree. After all, the king's prior inamoratas had all been members of the elite, born of royal lineage. However, it was one thing to become his lover, and quite something else to become his sole confidante and the power behind the throne. A title was purchased for her thus the transformation into Madame de Pompadour was complete. She was reviled by many, and obeyed by all.
With Versailles as her backdrop she became an important patron of the arts, nurturing such luminaries as Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, and Boucher. It was she who masterminded the building of the Petit Trianon Palace at Versailles.
Yet as a part of the world continued to be torn her quest for power was unsatisfied. France and England were at odds, and she cast a pall over the treaty allying France with her hated Austria. She succeeded in removing her enemies from positions of influence, and replacing them with trusted friends. Her creation of an opulent court incurred public wrath, and her political maneuverings created foes in court.
Nonetheless, the king's trust in his paramour never waned.
Incisive and thoroughly researched "Madame de Pompadour" bursts with color and intrigue. It is fact even more fascinating than fiction.
- Gail Cooke
Product Description
Biography.
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Madame de Pompadour, ou, Le pouvoir feminin
Danielle Gallet-Guerne
Manufacturer: Fayard
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
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ASIN: 2213015163 |
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Madame de Pompadour: E. Biographie
Tibor Simanyi
Manufacturer: Claassen
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 3546485130 |
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Madame de Pompadour: mistress of France
David Mynders Smythe
Manufacturer: W. Funk
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Binding: Unknown Binding
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ASIN: B0007DQVP8 |
Book Description
In the 1950s Chevrolet fans prayed for a savior, and Rex White answered. He took on big muscle cars, eventually winning both the 1960 Winston Cup Championship and the Driver of the Year title, and would later be named by NASCAR as one of their 50 all-time greatest drivers.
This memoir tells the story of Rex White's struggle to become a champion despite a poverty-ridden childhood and a devastating physical disability. A firsthand account of the early days of NASCAR and southern stock car racing, the text is based on extensive research and hundreds of hours of interviews with Rex White by writer Anne B. Jones. It includes tales by participants and fans and is peppered with anecdotes of a virtual who's who of NASCAR drivers, including Junior Johnson, Ned Jarrett, and a host of other drivers. The book is well illustrated, largely with photographs from Rex White's private collection.
Customer Reviews:
Gold Thunder.......2005-06-08
This book is wonderful! I don't know how to describe it. I'm not into sports and all that, but this was a riveting read.
In many autobiographies, it seems obvious that someone wrote the book for that person. But in Gold Thunder, Rex's no-punches-pulled account blends with Anne's seamless strorytelling to the point that one can almost imagine Rex sitting next to you.
Gold Thunder is very fast paced. You put the key in the ignition, rev it up a few times, and then watch it go. As the motor purrs to a stop and you turn the last page, you'll wonder where all the time went
Anyone will enjoy this book,including non race fans like myself. I'm sure that many aspects of it make more sense to race fans, but the book itself is a wonderful introduction to racing. I had no idea that NASCAR had such a colorful history. What a cast of characters! It's enough to make even the newest fans feel a bit of nostalgia.
Wonder book, wonderful person.......2005-03-20
Here's another great auto racing book that will not only let you into the life of Rex White, it will teach you along the way. Stricken with polio at a young age, growing up in poverty and working countless hours on a farm never hindered little Rex White's passion to get behind the wheel of a race car. You'll find out why his father played a major role in his "race to finish, race to win" atttitude, and you'll meet all of the people who impacted Rex's life on his way to becoming a NASCAR champion. People like modified great Frankie Schneider, who became White's mentor, to partner Louie Clements are all given prime space in this book. Rex tells what racing was really like in the good old days, his love of Chevrolet, and the countless hours on the road traveling on nickles and dimes to get to the next race. A regular dinner was a package of Lance crackers. You'll also attend several wild parties honchoed by Clown Prince Joe Weatherly.
The best part of this book are the lessons learned thanks to a great work ethic. You'll laugh at the loads of funny characters that come into Rex's life, and then also deal with racing's dangers and the many tragic events that happened on the track. It's loaded with photos, tells of the great/not so great 1963 year at Daytona with his Mystery Motor 427 Chevy, GM's "on again, off again" policies on racing and becoming a member of the official Chevy racing teams.
Another can't miss book on the great sport of auto racing from the eyes of one of NASCAR's all-time best 50 drivers. He may have stood only 5'4" in stature, but this is a giant of a man when it comes to racing and winning in life.
Gold Thunder a NASCAR Treasure.......2005-02-23
This well-written biography of Rex White, one of NASCAR's Fifty Living Legends, will keep you reading to the end to find out the outcome of all White's adventures in the 1950s and 60s on the early NASCAR circuit. White drove before the ovals were paved, and seems as comfortable on dirt tracks and on the road to the next race as anywhere in the world. Along the way, readers will learn as much about the stock car racing sport as readers of "Seabiscuit" found out about the life of the jockey and the history of the horse racing sport. This is a very enjoyable book with delightful accounts of team high jinks throughout the story and enough historical material to keep NASCAR fans arguing for years.
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The Cinema's Third Machine: Writing on Film in Germany, 1907-1933 (Modern German Culture and Literature)
Sabine Hake
Manufacturer: University of Nebraska Press
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 080322365X |
Book Description
The improvements in the technology, artistry, and distribution of motion pictures coincided with the traumas of modern Germany. It is hardly to be wondered that filmmakers frequently turned their cameras on Germany's social and political problems that propagandists regularly sought to manipulate them, that entrepreneurs tried to exploit them, and that German thinkers brooded upon the relationship between German society, politics, and the films that represented them all. From these tangled motives a rich discourse on film emerged that paralleled or anticipated discourses in the other film centers of the world.
The Cinema's Third Machine reproduces the diversity of perspectives and the intensity of controversies of early German film within the broad context of German social and political history, from the aesthetic rapture of the first years to the institutionalization of film by the national socialist state. Many texts have been rediscovered and are now presented to modern scholars for the first time. Hake treats all aspects of the medium: production, promotion, education, journalism, aesthetics, and political activism, following throughout the various forms criticism assumed.
Book Description
Everyday we face decisions that carry an element of risk and uncertainty. The ability to analyse, communicate and control the level of risk entailed by these decisions remains one of the most pressing challenges to the analyst, scientist and manager. This book presents the foundational issues in risk analysis - expressing risk, understanding what risk means, building risk models, addressing uncertainty, and applying probability models to real problems. The principal aim of the book is to give the reader the knowledge and basic thinking they require to approach risk and uncertainty to support decision making.
* Presents a statistical framework for dealing with risk and uncertainty.
* Includes detailed coverage of building and applying risk models and methods.
* Offers new perspectives on risk, risk assessment and the use of parametric probability models.
* Highlights a number of applications from business and industry.
* Adopts a conceptual approach based on elementary probability calculus and statistical theory.
Foundations of Risk Analysis provides a framework for understanding, conducting and using risk analysis suitable for advanced undergraduates, graduates, analysts and researchers from statistics, engineering, finance, medicine and the physical sciences, as well as for managers facing decision making problems involving risk and uncertainty.
Book Description
* Discusses the important links among the accounting, corporate governance, and economic aspects of hedging.
* Provides non-technical guidance about the risk management process for endowments, foundations, and pension funds.
* Presents a simple step-by-step approach to risk management.
Product Description
Hardcover w/dj. Non-Fiction
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Foundations and Trends in Finance, published by Thomson Gale on September 1, 2005. The length of the article is 575 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: 12020100 Risk management.(5: CitationsHome equity insurance.)(Recommended readings)
Author: Terence Lim
Publication:
Foundations and Trends in Finance (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 1
Issue: 5-6
Page: 497
Article Type: Recommended readings
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from National Underwriter Property & Casualty-Risk & Benefits Management, published by The National Underwriter Company on June 24, 1996. The length of the article is 1422 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
From the supplier: A study conducted by the Foundation for Issues and Research & Management underscored the marketing potential of the Internet in the insurance industry. Only 6 out of 113 responses to e-mail advertisements sent to insurance agents were negative. Industry analysts believe e-mail will represent a better marketing media in the short term due to the relative lack of experience of insurance professionals with online technology. Analysts predict the World Wide Web will have supplanted e-mail as an online marketing medium by 2006.
Citation Details
Title: Agents' Internet marketing interest exploding.(Foundation for Issues Research and Management finds Internet to be powerful marketing tool for insurance agents)
Author: Victoria Sonshine Pasher
Publication:
National Underwriter Property & Casualty-Risk & Benefits Management (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 24, 1996
Publisher: The National Underwriter Company
Issue: n26
Page: p9(2)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from National Underwriter Property & Casualty-Risk & Benefits Management, published by The National Underwriter Company on August 9, 1993. The length of the article is 620 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
From the supplier: Bare bones health insurance policies, which offer less than mandated services but carry lower premium prices, have not met with marketplace success in the 16 states where they have been offered for six months. The Families USA Foundation report on bare bones policies, attributes consumer rejection to Americans' need to have families fully protected. The bare bones policies usually limit physician visits, cut hospital stays or have large benefit deductibles or caps.
Citation Details
Title: Bare bones health insurance called a failure. (Families USA Foundation report)
Author: Mary Jane Fisher
Publication:
National Underwriter Property & Casualty-Risk & Benefits Management (Magazine/Journal)
Date: August 9, 1993
Publisher: The National Underwriter Company
Issue: n32
Page: p19(1)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from National Underwriter Property & Casualty-Risk & Benefits Management, published by The National Underwriter Company on January 1, 1996. The length of the article is 872 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
From the supplier: Many insurance groups are concerned that a Supreme Court ruling in a case involving the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Barnett Bank would undermine the ability of states to regulate insurance. The insurance groups are worried that a broad ruling that favors the Comptroller would cloud the whole issue of who regulates the insurance industry. The Court is expected to determine whether the Comptroller's decision allowing banks to sell insurance supercedes state anti-affiliation laws that forbids such practices.
Citation Details
Title: Barnett Bank ruling could shake regulatory foundation.
Author: Steven Brostoff
Publication:
National Underwriter Property & Casualty-Risk & Benefits Management (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 1996
Publisher: The National Underwriter Company
Issue: n1
Page: p1(2)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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Calif. regulators unconcerned by WC shakeout.(California Department of Insurance reacts nonchalantly to announcement by Foundation Health Systems Inc. ... & Casualty-Risk & Benefits Management
Manufacturer: The National Underwriter Company
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Binding: Digital
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ASIN: B00097JBZE
Release Date: 2005-07-28 |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from National Underwriter Property & Casualty-Risk & Benefits Management, published by The National Underwriter Company on March 2, 1998. The length of the article is 722 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
From the supplier: The California Insurance Dept reacted nonchalantly to the announcement by Foundation Health Systems (FHS) that it was selling-off its workers' compensation business despite the fact that two other workers' comp insurers recently exited California. An Insurance Dept representative explained that the FHS subsidiaries would still remain in the California workers' comp market. FHS' three subsidiaries, California Compensation Insurance Co., Business Insurance Corp. and Combined Benefits Insurance Co. were all promptly downgraded by A.M. Best Co.
Citation Details
Title: Calif. regulators unconcerned by WC shakeout.(California Department of Insurance reacts nonchalantly to announcement by Foundation Health Systems Inc. it is selling-off its workers' compensation business)
Publication:
National Underwriter Property & Casualty-Risk & Benefits Management (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 2, 1998
Publisher: The National Underwriter Company
Volume: v102
Issue: n9
Page: p18(1)
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- Money Secrets of the Rich and Famous
- Mrs Keppel and Her Daughter
- Nicholas And Alexandra: The Last Tsar And Tsarina
- Nikola and Milena, King and Queen of the Black Mountain: The Rise and Fall of Montenegro's Royal Family
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