Republican France is one of the best books I have read in my coursework in European history. The author has the knack to discuss nuances but does not lose the reader in arcane vocabulary or irrelevant theory. What a good study!

They were brilliant, violent, and dissolute, and it seems appropriate that they reigned over France's Hundred Years War with England. They witnessed the disaster at Crécy and the triumph of the Maid of Orleans. But all seven of the Valois kings were complex and fascinating men and their story is presented here in an able translation of the work of a prize-winning popular French historian.

I was looking for a detailed map in the form of a book, with a complete street index. This book has maps on the fold-out covers, a scant 28 pages of text-only sightseeing guidebook material, and a street index. It's more guide than map.

Check out "The Paris Mapguide" by Middleditch for the best maps I've found. Get the Michelin Green Guide for Paris if you want guidebook material (where to stay, what to see) with detailed area maps. For France, look at Michelin or Lonely Planet guides.

Bon Voyage!

Lets Go Map Guides are very good. They are concise, lightweight, and an easy size to store in a coat pocket. You will probably need an additional more detailed map though. But their maps are useful and the Metro Map (subway system) is indispensable. The recommendations on places to stay or restaurants is hit or miss. I would use some other guide book for that.

As soon as I got this book, I took out the inner pages, and just used the cover. The Metro and city maps printed on it proved indispensible. The plastic coated cover made it last through jacket pockets, jean pockets and rush hour Metro human sardines. You *need* a good portable map, and I found this one to be the one for me!

Okay...I really don't know what to think, having read most of these reviews. All I can say is, I've been an Anne Rice fan for a few years now, I've read all of her books, sometimes two or three times each....and I'm attached to her characters. So maybe I'm biased, eh? Especially in reviewing a book about my Armand. Of course it's going to seem as if you've heard the story before, if you've read the other Chronicles, because you have. But that story was surface details narrated by other characters, and thusly open to warping by outside influence and point of views. In this book, you find out the "real" history behind one of the most enigmatic characters in the series, as narrated by the character himself. The imagery and emotion carried in the writing is intricate as woven lace. You feel like you're getting caught up in a web, that simply *must* be for real! That's what makes a book great, in my opinion; the feeling that it wasn't written by any one person, but that the story wrote itself. It also doesn't hurt that i'm obsessed with art history; this book is set in the Italy of the High Rennaisance period! Rice is a descpriptive master, and her characters have the depth of personality so as to make them seam as real and physical as you or me. As for the sexual connotations...come on! This is a book about VAMPIRES! by ANNE RICE! What did you *think* it would be about? A tea party and after school movies? ^_^ It's not an excuse "I didn't know it would be like that!" Yes you did! Of course you did! And if you just cannot approve of fictional characters doing fictional things that do not agree with your real world ethics and morals, too bad. Close your eyes. The rest of us will not miss you, and neither will Anne herself!

This is one of the chronicles best. I have just started reading this book I am half way thru and i just cant seem to put it down. It is the most interesting book. I finally get to know more about Armand. He has always been the most mysterious one. You hardly ever know anything more than when Lestat or when Louis are with him. The begining chapter captures your attention and then when Armand begins to tell his tale it literally transports your mind and your vision to a poor little Russian boy from Kiev. He is described to have the face of a Boticelli Angel with dark curly,long ,and auburn hair. He has brown eyes. He is unfortunately kidnapped and forced to travel to find his master which eventually becomes his saviour Marius. Marius saves Armand and introduces him into a life of luxury which Armand has never known. He is refined and educated with Marius. This book is excellent and if you are a true Vampire Chronicle fan of Anne Rice I recommend that you read it. It will captivate you!

thought this was just as good as interview and never knew marius was such a dirty old man

This was my first Anne Perry book. It may be my last.

My impressions:

1) The story plays too many head games with it's characters for a story less than 75 pages. I can't imagine what her longer stories might be like.

2) I never felt comfortable with Celie, the main character. Then again, I don't feel comfortable being around unstable people in the 'real world'.

3) This story could have taken place during any time in history. The back drop simply made a [bad] story, [a bad] story with a morbid setting.

After reading this book, I had to check the photo on the jacket to make sure it was the same Anne Perry who writes such wonderful Victorian mysteries. I found the main character annoying and I didn't really care about what happened to any of them. I'm a big fan of Anne Perry, but this book was a major disapointment. If you are looking for a character like the Pitt or the Monk books, you won't find that here.

This story is a departure from the usual Anne Perry novels in several ways. It is not set in Victorian England (story is set in revolutionary France, August-September 1792), the pace of the story moves much more quickly, and, given that it is only 73 pages long, there is naturally much less character development and attention to detail than I usually associate with Anne Perry's novels. None of this detracts from the novella in any way because it focuses only upon one event in Celie's life and how she reacts to it, with the beginning of the Reign of Terror in the backdrop. This makes the novella all the more intriguing because it provides a vehicle in which to carry out plans of revenge that were not available earlier. It is also all the more dangerous because once set in motion, there is no way to stop it. Anne Perry manages to convey Celie's deep hurt, sorrow, anger, gullibility, jealousy, thoughts (helped here by a less-than-well-meaning "friend"),plans, & acts for revenge, second thoughts, actions to remedy what she has done before it is too late, redemption, forgiveness, and love for her fellow human beings in what was possibly most terrifying period in French history. It is a story of revenge, but the revenge is carried out by different people for different reasons. Although there is not as much character development of Celie compared with Charlotte Pitt or Hester Latterly, I think readers still learn what kind of a person Celie is by her actions. If you are looking for the standard Anne Perry novel, then you will be disappointed (it is NOT a mystery), but if you are willing to take a chance on a different kind of story, you will not be disappointed.

Ms. Wroe has come upon a seeming wealth of untouched historical data in the form of Rodez's archives. Unfortunately, she stresses the story of a pot of gold at the beginning of the book but never sticks to that main stream. She uses the "story" to bring in all sorts of fascinating information about business and social life in this French town, but these tangents don't bring us any closer to resolving her main story-line.

As earlier reviewers have stated, perhaps she should have stepped over that line into historical fiction where she could use the business and social history of the town, as well as the main idea concerning the pot of gold and constructed a fine fictional tale that would have been more pleasing, as well as having better flow.

A useful book for the information on business, law, and society in this unique town, but don't buy it expecting to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

I have to agree with the reviewer below and ask why this book was not written as a historical novel. Anne Wroe is a terrific writer but she limited herself far too much in this little book. It could have been great. Should have been great. My wife and I visited Rodez on a recent trip from Switzerland to Andorra and I must say, Wroe was factually correct and Rodez, although not conventionally "pretty" was certainly a fascinating place! Please, Ms. Wroe, write another book. Set it in France and make it historical fiction. You'll find yourself on the bestseller lists, I'm sure and you'll deserve to be there!

Ann Wroe announces in her introduction that, "We are dealing in fact, not fiction," and that she will permit herself only the smallest liberties when going beyond the known facts. If, for instance, "we know the path a man travelled to go home (as in one case we do), and what lay along it, it seems no offense to historical truth to retrace his steps."

Fair enough. But these are not the kind of remarks that we normally see at the start of a history book, and they serve as a warning that Wroe is going to be writing something that might be mistaken for a novel. The warning is well taken: "A Fool and His Money" does indeed come across as a poor novel filled with fascinating facts. One major problem is that virtually everything Wroe truly knows about her characters is related to their legal woes. They're continually in trouble with various civil and ecclesiastical courts, and if they get a few days of breathing space, they use it to litigate against their own friends, neighbors, and family members. A second problem is that her main story line has no resolution and dwindles away at the end of the book; the facts just aren't there.

I'm glad I read the book. I learned some worthwhile things about everyday life in Fourteenth-Century France. But the experience was more of a chore than a pleasure, and I wish Wroe had written either an historical novel or a non-novelistic historical text. Come to think of it, she could use her material a second time to write a novel. If she does, I'll read it.

I am writng this review to persuade you to read the Play "The Diary Of Anne Frank." This book is very interesting. You also can learn a lot from this play.
To me I think I could have done everthing Anne did because I am a very confident person. The things Anne did weren't easy to do. So u have to read this book I guarantee you will learn something!!!

I'm trying to persuade you to read this book because it tells you how the Jewish people including Anne had to hide when the "Nazi's, and Hitler" were coming. Also I think you should read it because it has a lot of historical moments, like the Halocuast which means "burnt hole".

I could have done everything Anne did because she could argue but I do not like the way Anne argued with her mother. Anne had a thing that she always wanted and that was her diary when she got it she was happy. The only hard thing that Anne did that I could not do was adjust to having another family live in a little house.

Anyone who hates this play has no soul. Anne Frank's poignant - AND ABSOLUTELY TRUE - tale serves not only as a tragic tribute to the horrors of the holocaust, but also as a testament to the heroics of an ordinary heart in the midst of unfathomable injustice. Anne Frank's hope and bravery are beautifully memorialized in these pages; this is something everyone should read. Those who shirk from the play simply because they wish to shield their naive minds from such an unpleasant subject (and a decidedly unhappy ending) do themselves and the rest of humanity a great disservice, for if we do push this book to the back of our minds and our libraries, we lose its message, we lose whatever chance we may've had to reexamine our world through the eyes of Anne Frank and lighten the darkness of man's heart with her courage. To read this play is to become enlightened and to be inspired, and with all the animosity and intolerance in our world today, we could all use a little more of Anne's spirit of acceptance.

This is another book which ignores the more objective evidence in favor of the slander promoted by Joan's opponents (i.e., the English and their allies among the Anglo-Burgundian clergy) while adding a large dollop of speculation and New Age philosophy into the mix. Joan was never considered a heretic by anyone except her enemies: for a more balanced selection of the clerical views of that era, see Jean Gerson's treatise in her defense (written in 1429) and Inquisitor Bréhal's declaration of her innocence contained in his "Recollectio" at the end of the Rehabilitation Trial in 1456. Similarly, the notion that 15th century women were a stifled class is rather curious, given that there were so many aristocratic women (Marie de Berri, Jeanne de Montfort, Marcia Ordelaffi, Jeanne de Penthièvre...) who took charge of their families' armies and other affairs during the Hundred Years War period (Joan was not the only woman to be given titular command of an army, by any means); this doesn't fit the model of history which certain modern academics subscribe to, but it's the way the feudal system has traditionally operated (that's why England has a Queen right now). Finally, the book's insistence on calling Joan a "shaman" has provoked justifiable ridicule, and hardly needs to be debunked here (I hope).

It seems that some authors cannot resist the temptation to rewrite Joan's history in terms of their own ideology. The end result hardly qualifies as history.

I think one should question how autonomous a woman is if she listens to the voices which supposedly came from outside of her being. I can understand the shaman relation. Of course anyone from a scientific perspective who has made "standards of proof" their god are never willing to accept the factual existence of other viewpoints, but to each his or her own. Altogether, this work has some interesting points, but comes from a lousy angle. You can't blame them, but several Westerners have been caught in a trend for awhile now to concretize myth and magic in order to satisfy "science-types". It just doesn't work and only draws more criticism. You cannot fit a square peg into a round hole.

Irrespective of the claims of the previous reviewer, this is a book based on scholarship. As early as 1986, Barstow uncovered what so many others are announcing today--that a central question of women's lives is the question of authority. On whose authority does a woman speak when she can not speak on her own? In a world where women were tightly hemmed in by culture and religion, where they had no authority to speak, Joan of Arc discovered a new basis for personal authority. In her case, it was her voices which gave her that authority; once heard, she could do no other than to speak what they commanded. As Barstow says--Joan's story is a that of an autonomous woman, one who broke through the limitations and constraints of her time. In this highly documented book the reader learns of Joan's doubts, her humiliation, her torments. Finally, one learns again about courage against all odds.