Author: Edmund Birch File Type: pdf This book explores how writers responded to the rise of the newspaper over the course of the nineteenth century. Taking as its subject the ceaseless intertwining of fiction and journalism at this time, it tracks the representation of newspapers and journalists in works by Honore de Balzac, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, and Guy de Maupassant. This was an era in which novels were published in newspapers and novelists worked as journalists. In France, fiction was to prove an utterly crucial presence at the newspapers heart, with a gilded array of predominant literary figures active in journalism. Today, few in search of a novel would turn to the pages of a daily newspaper. But what are usually cast as discrete realms fiction and journalism came, in the nineteenth century, to occupy the same space, a point which complicates our sense of the cultural history of French literature. **

Author: Neal Stephenson File Type: mobi It is the late 1600s on the high seas. A group of Barbary galley slaves plot amongst themselves as they ply the oars of a pirate ship. These ten men -- unfortunates from around the world impressed into servitude -- have heard whispers of an enormous cache of Spanish gold. Together, they hatch a daring scheme escape their chains, seize a ship, and discover the gold. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world . . . The beautiful Eliza, toast of Versailles and spy extraordinaire, attempts to return to London with her baby, a child whose paternity remains a mystery. But, as she makes her way home from the Continent, her ship is stopped by a French privateer -- and she is returned to the Sun Kings court. And so Eliza is thrown back into a web of international intrigue, and finds herself contending with all manner of characters, including cryptographers, poisoners, Jesuits, financial manipulators, and the stray pirate or two. In the year 1689, a cabal of Barbary galley slaves -- including one Jack Shaftoe, a.k.a. King of the Vagabonds, a.k.a. Half-Cocked Jack, lately and miraculously cured of the pox -- devises a daring plan to win freedom and fortune. A great adventure ensues, rife with battles, chases, hairbreadth escapes, swashbuckling, bloodletting, and danger -- a perilous race for an enormous prize of silver ... nay, gold ... nay, legendary gold that will place the intrepid band at odds with the mighty and the mad, with alchemists, Jesuits, great navies, pirate queens, and vengeful despots across vast oceans and around the globe. Meanwhile, back in Europe ... The exquisite and resourceful Eliza, Countess de la Zeur, master of markets, pawn and confidante of enemy kings, onetime Turkish harem virgin, is stripped of her immense personal fortune by Frances most dashing privateer. Penniless and at risk from those who desire either her or her head (or both), she is caught up in a web of international intrigue, even as she desperately seeks the return of her most precious possession -- her child. While ... Newton and Leibniz continue to propound their grand theories as their infamous rivalry intensifies, stubborn alchemy does battle with the natural sciences, nobles are beheaded, dastardly plots are set in motion, coins are newly minted (or not) in enemy strongholds, father and sons reunite in faraway lands, priests rise from the dead ... and Daniel Waterhouse seeks passage to the Massachusetts colony in hopes of escaping the madness into which his world has descended.

Author: Pier Vittorio Aureli File Type: pdf

Author: Jan Kozak File Type: pdf Jan Kozak explains how the people of Czechoslovakia were manipulated into voting themselves into slavery. Through targeted mass agitation, a free government was transformed into a totalitarian dictatorship -- legally! Today more than ever, the revolutionary methods described by Kozak are being targeted against American liberties.ReviewCommunist and socialist elements within a parliament initiate policies and legislation which strengthen the hand of grassroots revolutionaries. They also connive to punish those who oppose the planned coup. Meanwhile, grassroots revolutionaries whip up the appearance of popular support for the revolutionary agenda through strikes, rallies, petitions, threats, and - sometimes - sabotage. The pressure from below by the small number of revolutionaries and their larger number of dupes is then used to justify the centralization of power in the hands of the executive branch of the state. Wishy-washy politicians are intimidated, and the pressure from above intensifies. Each legislative victory results in new demands for even stronger legislation, which is relentlessly pursued by communists and their dupes in parliament - who claim that they are acting in the name of the popular will. The cycle continues until opposition is completely powerless, intimidated, or liq! uidated - and the revolution is a fait accompli. -- The New American magazine, July 5, 1999