Provence, 1970 is about a singular historic moment. In the winter of that year, more or less coincidentally, the iconic culinary figures James Beard, M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, Richard Olney, Simone Beck, and Judith Jones found themselves together in the South of France. They cooked and ate, talked and argued, about the future of food in America, the meaning of taste, and the limits of snobbery. Without quite realizing it, they were shaping...

Told for the first time by the only reporter present, this is the true story of the legendary Paris Tasting of 1976... a blind tasting where french judges shocked the industry by chooing unknown California wines over France's best and its revolutionary impact on the world of wine.

"Part intellectual history, part critical theory, The Last Man Takes LSD challenges the way we think about both Michel Foucault and modern progressive politics. One fateful day in May 1975, Foucault dropped acid in the southern California desert. In letters reproduced here, he described it as among the most important events of his life, one which would lead him to completely rework his History of Sexuality. That trip helped redirect Foucault's thought...

"In World War I, telephones linked commanding generals with soldiers in muddy trenches. A woman in uniform connected almost every one of their calls, speeding the orders that won the war. Like other soldiers, the "Hello Girls" swore the Army oath and stayed for the duration. A few were graduates of elite colleges. Most were ordinary, enterprising young women motivated by patriotism and adventure, eager to test their mettle and save the world. The...

One young couple. One small village. Thousands of Jews on the run from the Nazis. An intimate portrait of Magda ans Andre Trocme, who transformed a small town in France into a place of safety during the Holocaust.

Milan Kundera's new collection of essays is a passionate defense of art in an era that, he argues, no longer values art or beauty. Art is what we possess in the face of evil and the darker side of human nature. With the same mix of emotion and idea that characterizes his novels, Kundera revisits the artists who remain important to him and whose works help us better understand the world we live in and what it means to be human. An astute reader of...

Throughout history, warfare has transformed social, political, cultural, and religious aspects of our lives. We tell tales of wars-past, present, and future-to create and reinforce a common purpose. In this engaging overview, Jeremy Black examines war as a global phenomenon, looking at the First and Second World Wars as well as those ranging from Han China and Assyria, Imperial Rome, and Napoleonic France to Vietnam and Afghanistan. Black explores...

The most important scientist of the twentieth century and the most important artist had their periods of greatest creativity almost simultaneously and in remarkably similar circumstances. This fascinating parallel biography of Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso as young men examines their greatest creations-Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and Einstein's special theory of relativity. Miller shows how these breakthroughs arose not only from within...

Illuminates both the historic context in which FDR articulated the Four Freedoms -- Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear -- and the role of Rockwell's paintings in bringing them to life for millions of people, rallying the public behind the War effort and changing the tenor of the times. In telling the story of how Rockwell's works were transformed from a series of paintings into a national movement, the...