Let me share with you a doubt. My doubt is that visual art has all that much of an impact on history. have written many of the essays you've been reading as if art had something to say, and as if it were important. And I believe, more or less - on good days -- that something like this is true.
It's amusing to imagine what Alexis de Tocqueville would make of China recommending his 'Revolution' to its people. What China's leadership seems to have failed to notice is that the French Revolution is generally considered to have been a good thing by its people.
In a week when three members of Pussy Riot, Russian President Vladimir Putin's prime party poopers, have been put on trial in Moscow accused of "hooliganism" in an Orthodox church (they sang a "punk" prayer!!!), Russian "queer" politics may have stumbled on its own 1812 moment.
A guy sort of rolled his eyes and churlishly mumbled, "Why should we care in the U.S. about some dumb French holiday?" All rudeness aside, I decided to explain it to him. I love talking to churlish brick walls. I'm like a perky, blond Sisyphus.
At a time when viewers are obsessed with Downton Abbey, this film offers an upstairs downstairs French Revolution era glimpse complete with dying rats, gossipy crones, lotharios in gondolas, and the very beautiful queen.
Uh oh, Rick Santorum's trying to horn in on Newt Gingrich's history professor action. And he's off to a good start -- he approaches Newt's accuracy level of zero in this actual audio clip.
Nothing says "I love you... and I'm an intellectual, I swear!!!" like a thoughtful and stimulating book. Valentine's Day is stressful enough as it is,...
Life sized bronze statues of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass stand at the entrances to the New-York Historical Society (N-YHS) greeting visitor...
Marilyn Holsing's exhibition 'Further Tales of Young Marie Antoinette' juxtaposes the endless expanse of the imagination when a little girl is playing...
The reasons that there aren't any trophy heads after the financial crisis are plentiful: there are legal obstacles, practical obstacles, a lack of personnel, and general fuzziness about how economic crimes are defined.
Powdered wig-wearing patriots bounce on an inflatable mountaintop. Mermaids twirl while suspended in thin air. A battle breaks out on top of a giant, ...
Paris was the scene of colorful military parades and spectacular air displays as proud citizens took to the Champs-Élysées avenue to celebrate Basti...
The imminent Royal Wedding between England's Prince William and commoner Kate Middleton has met with a wide array of artwork created in response. The ...
The Sky Over the Louvre, by esteemed cartoonist Bernar Yslaire, demonstrates understanding -- even mastery -- of a fascinating historical episode, and is a powerful aesthetic experience.
With all the hype about greening your life, one of the most basic things you can do happens to be the most important -- going for a more plant-based diet.
Two centuries ago, news of revolution -- and revolution itself -- reverberated back and forth across the Atlantic at astonishing speed. The social media of the day? Word-of-mouth information, rumor, and opinion.
For two long centuries, the Arab Middle East has struggled to meet the challenge of modernity, a task exacerbated by the lingering, and increasing, dissonance between the glorious past and the shameful present.
AFP - He was one of France's most adored kings, a monarch known as "le bon roi Henri" (good king Henri), who promoted religious tolerance, was a hit w...
Though no stranger to French cuisine when he set sail, Thomas Jefferson's years spent in France completely revolutionized his culinary thinking and opened up a new gastronomic world for him.
Walk down any street in the old part of Paris behind the Louvre, and you see large numbers of unwashed, evil-looking ruffians just waiting for an excuse to riot, loot and burn.
David Brion Davis
The New York Review of Books
Toussaint Louverture: A Biography, by Madison Smartt Bell (Pantheon)
The Haitian Revolution of 1791-1...
Tomorrow is Bastille Day, celebrating the start of the French Revolution. The French Revolution didn't happen because it seemed like a fun idea with ...