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Introduces students to modern France by exploring the emergence and development of France's five republics and the values and ideals of French republicanism. As an introductory book for undergraduates, France Since the Revolution does not assume extensive previous knowledge and contains a complete glossary of the key names used in chapters, as well as a time line for reference and suggestions for further reading. An important resource for student and teachers alike, this accessible book gives its readers a firm base in nineteenth- and twentieth-century French history and culture from which to develop more specialized interests. ... Read more

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As the grip of the German Occupation tightened on Paris in the summer of 1940, Agnes Humbert, a respected art historian, took a leap of blind faith and reckless courage. With a handful of her distinguished colleagues at the Musee de l'Homme in Paris, she helped to form one of the first organised groups of the French Resistance. The unlikely but highly effective Musee de l'Homme network was also to earn a tragic place in history. In 1941 many of its members, including its charismatic leader Boris Vilde and Agnes herself, were betrayed to the Gestapo and imprisoned. Seven of the men were condemned to death and executed by firing squad. The women were deported to Germany as slave workers. These are the events described with electrifying immediacy by Agnes Humbert in her secret journal, first published in France in 1946 and never before translated into English.With self-deprecating humour and acerbic intelligence, she offers a uniquely personal and candid perspective on this dark and dramatic period, while the striking images that draw her artist's eye add a graphic, cinematic intensity to her diary entries.Refusing even in the grimmest days to surrender her compassion, humanity or talent for spotting the absurd, she writes with a deft touch and sardonic wit that belie the palpable depth of her conviction and outrage. Written with all the immediacy of events just lived, "Resistance" (first published as Notre guerre in Paris in 1946) stands today as a testament to one woman's indomitable spirit, and as an eloquent tribute to the sacrifice and courage of her comrades who did not survive. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

More about "Imprisonment" than "Resistance"
This review is based upon the Audible.com audiobook version of "Resistance"

For American readers, the phrase "French Resistance" often conjures up images of French men and women derailing German troop trains in the middle of the night, safehouses and transport for downed Allied Airmen and other various skullduggery.

You will NOT find that in this book.Most "Resistance" was probably very much like the efforts detailed in Agnes Humbert's book, with loose groups of associates making and distributing pamphlets and subtly engaged in undermining German efforts.If I had read an entire book about nothing but this kind of resistance in Occupied France, I would've enjoyed it tremendously.

What I got, however, was a book that is primarily about the experience of a Frenchwoman in Jail and in Slave Labor Prison for, from our perspective, relatively minor Resistance activities.Her account of her time in these locations is certainly well told and valuable from a general historical perspective, but again, it's not what I was looking for, nor what Audible.com's summary promised.

But even with all this in mind, and even if I knew exactly what I was getting when I embarked on the book, I still couldn't give it 4 or 5 stars.

Why?

Because the author idealizes Stalinist Russia to an extent that I, a reader of many books (dozens) about that dark time and place, find appalling.Her lack of recognition of the evils of the the Soviet Union, even though she had traveled to it and had ample opportunity to read reliable 3rd party accounts of that regime's systematic destruction of its own people, is indicative of either extreme naivete or willful blindness to its very real flaws. Her own very real suffering under the Germans was a pale shadow of the pain endured by millions of Soviet Citizens, from the mid 1920s and into the early 1950s in particular, and on a reduced basis until the era of Glasnost.

Granted, she wrote this memoir in 1946.As a capsule of a particular point of view of a person in a specific time and place, it is revealing and historically valuable.But that doesn't make her perspective any less galling to read, and the afterword's lack of comment on these views is a notable omission.

Amazing Journal
This journal, by Agnes Humbert, is translated from the French by Barbara Mellor. It records Agnes' participation in the Resistance movement against German occupation of France during World War II. The courage and intelligence Agnes showed during this traumatic experience is amazing, and her style of writing, spare and to-the-point, is riveting. I'm so glad I was able to get a copy of this book from Amazon. It provides a realistic account of what many of France's citizens endured.

Moving and Important
Agnes Humbert's Resistance is the story of her life as France is occupied by Germans in World War II, her arrest for her underground activities, and her life after liberation. A section of the book is devoted to each of these three periods. However, although Humbert wrote the entire book in diary form, only the first third, recounting the occupation of Paris, is taken from her journal. The rest are reconstructions and more accurately described as memoir, rather than a day to day accounting of events.

Still, Humbert was a gifted writer, and her description of the fall of Paris and the populace's evacuation en masse paralleled the first "movement" of Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise which, although fiction, was also written contemporaneously. Her keen eye for detail renders her story all the more poignant, although one sometimes wonders how she was able to retain all of names and descriptions, despite years of not having her diary. Still, if one reads this as a memoir, rather than a diary, it is an elegant and valuable addition to the literature of World War II France and the citizens who lived through it.

Despair, hope, victory
Agnes Humbert was an art historian turned member of the Resistance after Paris fell to the Germans in June, 1940.She, her family and much of the population of Paris fled the city as the Germans approached.Scenes of horror unfolded as she walked with masses of people from Paris to south of Limoges.Her account of her journey is immediate and heartrending.

Humbert was languishing in the countryside and sinking into despair when she heard a broadcast by General de Gaulle exhorting the French soldiers and people to rally round him and carry on the struggle.She wrote of her reaction:"A feeling I thought had died forever stirs within me: hope."Humbert was further buoyed by radio broadcasts recounting that the people of Paris were tearing down German posters as quickly as they were posted.The people of Paris were rebelling!She waded through the bureaucracy to obtain the papers that allowed her to return to Paris in August, 1940.Thus began her journal and memoir of her life as a member of the French Resistance and political prisoner subjected to forced labour in German prisons.

The book is two parts journal and one part memoir.Until two days before her arrest on April 15, 1941, Humbert maintained a journal.After she was liberated from the German prison in April, 1945, her journal commenced again.The story she told of the time in between was from memory.It was vivid.

Journal and memoir--throughout, the reader feels the author's sense of humor, sense of the absurd, and courage.One gains an acute understanding of the strength of conviction of Humbert and of her fellows, and further, of the risks they undertook both before and after their arrests.The reader will cringe at the descriptions of the abuse and deprivation Humbert suffered while in prison, and cheer her efforts to sabotage the enemy's war efforts in the small ways that were available to her.

I will not soon forget this book; it is incredible to me that it was published in 1946 but not published in translation until 2008.

I have only one other comment and that is about the translation.I believe the spirit of the book and the language of the book were accurately translated, so I am being a bit picky to say that the voice of the author does not come through as a French voice.The French have a certain way of expressing themselves that is different from the way we English speakers do.I would like to read it in French to see if it is just that much better.

Perfect guide through the formation of French Resistance, and the cruelties and kindesses of Nazi prison camps
I came across Agnés Humbert's Résistance completely by accident while browsing the "New in Hardcover" section in Barnes & Noble one day, but rarely have I been more grateful for following my instincts on an unfamiliar book and author. From the moment I picked it up this book has haunted me. Too compelling to put down, but too harrowing to read straight through without breaks to recover emotionally, reading this book became a delicious struggle between my need to continue and my desire to stop and reflect.

Résistance begins with Agnés Humbert's actual journal entries from the summer of 1940 and the beginning of the Nazi occupation of Paris. She describes the conception and birth of the French Resistance from a completely new point of view, almost as if it was a game she and her friends invented to annoy the Nazis. But it is the very casual way in which she describes certain horrors that brings home to the reader the atrocities of the Nazi occupiers. Her descriptions of the bravery, strength and loyalty of her compatriots brought tears to my eyes.

The later portion of the book, after Humbert's arrest, are also written in journal form, but these entries were written just after her release when the war ended. She writes "my memories are so clear that I am able to commit them to paper as they happened and in strict sequence. I remember everything as clearly as though it were written in notebooks". This portion of the book is truly an intimate look into the life of a prisoner of war, and you get the impression that as gut-wrenching as Agnés' experiences are, she actually got off somewhat easily compared to the treatment of so many other prisoners in Nazi camps.

Now that I've told you how clear she is in expressing the horrors of war, I need to tell you how very hopeful Humbert's book is. Although the tears flowed freely while reading many passages, the bleakness never took over, and often my tears were tears of admiration for a woman who was oppressed in so many ways, both physical and spiritual, and yet was still able to resist in any small way she could what she knew to be evil. You could not ask for a better narrator, a better guide through the unbelievable cruelties and unexpected kindnesses of the Nazi prison camps.

Humbert's journal/book covers the time period from just before the Nazi occupation of Paris to the end of the war and the American liberation of the prison camps in Germany. It is not a comprehensive view of the entirety of WWII, but it's not meant to be. It is one woman's harrowing and hopeful experience of losing her certainty in her country's leaders, but keeping her confidence in the spirit of her nation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Very funny. Kay & Don were never better! Must Hear!
Just the best for anyone who is or has been married!I am buying one for myself & a couple more for special friends.VERY hard to find this recording.(So glad you folks carry this - keep up the good work.) ... Read more

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Time for another visit with John and Blanche Bickerson, Featuring Don Ameche and Frances Langford as radio's top-rated domestic wranglers. ... Read more

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The third issue of Bridge: Stories & Ideas. This issue comes packaged with a CD. A higher price is charged through Amazon than our cover price to make up for the expenses of online sales, which are significant. ... Read more

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When art restorer Elisabeth Young vanishes after accepting a commission from a mysterious wealthy collector, her lover, Francis Thurlow, and antiques dealer Annie Macalpine race against time to find her. By the author of The Playroom. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Dynamics, published by Canadian Association of Critical Care Nurses on March 22, 2008. The length of the article is 4411 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the author: Conclusion: The results indicate that education, continuing competence, and prevention and management of adverse events, such as bleeding and filter clotting, are the major issues related to CRRT nursing practice across Canada.

Citation Details
Title: Exploring CRRT practices in ICU: A survey of Canadian hospitals.(continuous renal replacement therapy)(Intensive care units)(Survey)
Author: Stephanie Langford
Publication: Dynamics (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 22, 2008
Publisher: Canadian Association of Critical Care Nurses
Volume: 19Issue: 1Page: 18(6)

Article Type: Survey

Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning ... Read more

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This study focuses on the work of the nineteenth-century journalist and revolutionary, Jules Valles (1832-1885). By exploring the relationship between Valles's trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels and the ideology underpinning the early Third Republic, it argues that his trilogy aimed at several levels to contest the legitimacy of the French Third Republic. The study begins by discussing the historical motivations behind the Republic's forceful propagation of its ideology. It then goes on to chart the typical discursive modes through which Third Republican ideology was (re)produced, in particular the speeches, festivals and iconography of the infant regime. The concluding chapters provide a detailed analysis of literary strategies used by Valles to combat the ideological discourses of the Republican regime. ... Read more

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This collection of the writings and speeches of Burke include a critique of the French Revolution which expresses much of his matured thinking on political and social life and issued a call for a European crusade to save civilization; and his thoughts on Irish constitutional, economic, and religious problems and Anglo-Irish relations. ... Read more