New Books Network
Book of the Day/ General History

Devil's Historians

How Modern Extremists Abuse the Medieval Past

Amy Kaufman and Paul Sturtevant

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
In The Devil's Historians: How Modern Extremists Abuse the Medieval Past (University of Toronto Press, 2020), Amy S. Kaufman and Paul B. Sturtevant examine the many ways in which the medieval past has been manipulated to promote discrimination, oppression, and murder. Tracing the fetish for “medieval times” behind toxic ideologies like nationalism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, misogyny, and white supremacy, Kaufman and Sturtevant show us how the Middle Ages have been twisted …
Gender Studies

Beauvoir in Time

Meryl Altman

Hosted by Lilian Calles Barger
Meryl Altman's new book Beauvoir in Time, published by Brill Rodopi Press (2020), situates Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1949) in its historical context and responds to criticism that …
Irish Studies

Derry City

Memory and Political Struggle in Northern Ireland

Margo Shea

Hosted by Ryan Shelton
The city that sits on the River Foyle on the North side of the Irish isle in many ways has stood as a microcosm of the conflicts in Northern Ireland …
Medicine

Distributing Condoms and Hope

The Racialized Politics of Youth Sexual Health

Chris A. Barcelos

Hosted by Rachel Pagones
Distributing Condoms and Hope: The Racialized Politics of Youth Sexual Health (U California Press, 2020) is a feminist ethnographic account of how youth sexual health programs in the racially and …
Film

Beyond Bias

Conservative Media, Documentary Form, and the Politics of Hysteria

Scott Krzych

Hosted by Joel Tscherne
Scott Krzych's book Beyond Bias: Conservative Media, Documentary Form, and the Politics of Hysteria (Oxford University Press, 2021) offers the first scholarly study of contemporary right-wing documentary film and video. Drawing from …
Islamic Studies

Narrative Pasts

The Making of a Muslim Community in Gujarat, C. 1400-1650

Jyoti Gulati Balachandran

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
Jyoti Gulati Balachandran's Narrative Pasts: The Making of a Muslim Community in Gujarat, c. 1400-1650 (Oxford University Press, 2020) explores the complex power of Sufi texts in creating Muslim communities in …
Interpretive Political and Social Science

Gendered Citizenship

Understanding Gendered Violence in Democratic India

Natasha Behl

Hosted by Nick Cheesman
Why do we find pervasive gender-based discrimination, exclusion and violence in India when the Indian constitution builds an inclusive democracy committed to gender equality? This is the puzzle that animates …
Science

Pay Attention

Sex, Death, and Science

John Horgan

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
What would it feel like to wake up inside the head of someone who writes about science for a living? John Horgan, acclaimed author of the bestseller The End of …
Architecture

Visual Delight in Architecture

Daylight, Vision and View

Lisa Heschong

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Lisa Heschong's book Visual Delight in Architecture: Visual Delight in Architecture (Routledge, 2021) examines the many ways that our lives are enriched by the presence of natural daylight and window views …
Ideas Roadshow Podcast

Embracing Complexity

David Cannadine

Hosted by Howard Burton
Embracing Complexity is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and eminent historian David Cannadine, Princeton University. This thoughtful conversation includes an examination of different aspects of the …
Science, Technology, and Society

Radiant Infrastructures

Media, Environment, and Cultures of Uncertainty

Rahul Mukherjee

Hosted by Noopur Raval
In Radiant Infrastructures: Media, Environment, and Cultures of Uncertainty (Duke UP, 2020), Rahul Mukherjee explores how the media coverage of nuclear power plants and cellular phone antennas in India—what he …
Nordic Asia Podcast

Popular Protests in the Age of #MilkTeaAlliance

A Discussion with Wasana Wongsurawat and Mai Corlin Fredriksen

Wasana Wongsurawat and Mai Corlin Fredriksen

Hosted by Nordic Asia Podcast
What influence can online and visual activism have on protest movements? With a wave of anti-establishment protests sweeping over East and Southeast Asia over the past couple of years, the …
Book of the Day/ National Security

Pastels and Pedophiles

Inside the Mind of QAnon

Mia Bloom and Sophia Moskalenko

Hosted by Beth Windisch
Two experts of extremist radicalization take us down the QAnon rabbit hole, exposing how the conspiracy theory ensnared countless Americans, and show us a way back to sanity. In January 2021, thousands descended on the U.S. Capitol to aid President Donald Trump in combating a shadowy cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles. Two women were among those who died that day. They, like millions of Americans, believed that a mysterious insider known …
Critical Theory

Crises and Hegemonic Transitions

From Gramsci's Quaderni to the Contemporary World Economy

Lorenzo Fusaro

Hosted by Stephen Dozeman
Gramsci’s concept of hegemony is often invoked, but usually as a means of cultural critique and analysis. However, my guest Lorenzo Fusaro argues in his recent book Crises and Hegemonic …
Eastern European Studies

Protected Children, Regulated Mothers

Gender and the "Gypsy Question" in State Care in Postwar Hungary, 1949–1956

Eszter Varsa

Hosted by Leslie Waters
Historian Eszter Varsa’s new book Protected Children, Regulated Mothers: Gender and the 'Gypsy Question' in State Care in Postwar Hungary, 1949–1956 (Central European UP, 2020) examines child protection in Stalinist …
Secularism

Dangerous Games

What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds

Joseph P. Laycock

Hosted by Carrie Lynn Evans
The 1980s saw the peak of a moral panic over fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons. A coalition of moral entrepreneurs that included representatives from the Christian Right …
Psychology

Calm Within the Storm

Resiliency for Today, Tomorrow, and Always

Robyne Hanley-Dafoe

Hosted by Elizabeth Cronin
An inspiring new voice in resiliency, Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe believes that our modern conception of resiliency as "fighting" or being "tougher" is misguided. Learning happens when we are able to trust and …
Language

No Future in This Country

The Prophetic Pessimism of Bishop Henry Mcneal Turner

Andre E. Johnson

Hosted by Lee Pierce
No Future in This Country: The Prophetic Pessimism of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner (U Mississippi Press, 2020) is a history of the career of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner (1834–1915), specifically focusing …
Intellectual History

Speculation

A Cultural History from Aristotle to AI

Gayle Rogers

Hosted by Pierre d'Alancaisez
In a world that purports to know more about the future than any before it, why do we still need speculation? Insubstantial speculations – from utopian thinking to high-risk stock …
Entrepreneurship and Leadership

Active Hotels, via Booking.com, to Angel Investing

A Discussion with Andy Phillips (Part 2)

Andy Phillipps

Hosted by Peter Cowley
Following on from Andy Phillipps first podcast, we are pleased to bring you part two. In part one, Andy described how he co-founded Active Hotels, selling to Priceline and eventually …
Ideas Roadshow Podcast

Philosophy of Brain

Patricia Churchland

Hosted by Howard Burton
Philosophy of Brain is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and neurophilosopher Patricia Churchland, UC San Diego. Patricia Churchland has done extensive research in the fields of …
Intellectual History

Canaan, Dim and Far

Black Reformers and the Pursuit of Citizenship in Pittsburgh, 1915-1945

Adam Lee Cilli

Hosted by Hettie V. Williams
Adam Lee Cilli's book Canaan, Dim and Far: Black Reformers and the Pursuit of Citizenship in Pittsburgh, 1915-1945 (U Georgia Press, 2021) is an assiduously researched book about the activism of …
Political Science

Congress and the First Civil Rights Era, 1861-1918

Jeffery A. Jenkins and Justin Peck

Hosted by Susan Liebell
Jeffrey Jenkins and Justin Peck’s new book Congress and the First Civil Rights Era, 1861-1918 (U Chicago Press, 2021) explores how Congressional Republicans enacted laws aimed at establishing an inclusive, multiracial …
Psychoanalysis

The Desire of Psychoanalysis

Exercises in Lacanian Thinking

Gabriel Tupinambá

Hosted by Jordan Osserman
What does psychoanalysis want? In The Desire of Psychoanalysis: Exercises in Lacanian Thinking (Northwestern UP, 2021), analyst and academic Gabriel Tupinambá takes the Lacanian world to task for failing to properly …
Nordic Asia Podcast

The Renewable Energy Revolution in East Asia and the Nordics

A discussion with Espen Moe, Paul Midford and Eric Zusman

Espen Moe, Paul Midford and Eric Zusman

Hosted by Kenneth Bo Nielsen
The world is in a midst of a renewable energy revolution, with the price of utility scale photo-voltaic solar power falling by nearly 90% between 2009 and 2019, and the …
The Future of Higher Education

When Colleges Close

Leading in a Time of Crisis

David Chard and Mary Churchill

Hosted by David Finegold
David Chard, the President of Wheelock College in Boston, MA, discusses the process of merging Wheelock successfully into Boston University to become the BU Wheelock College of Education and Human …
Book of the Day/ Russian and Eurasian Studies

CABBAGE AND CAVIAR

A History of Food in Russia

Alison K. Smith

Hosted by Steven Seegel
When people think of Russian food, they generally think either of the opulent luxury of the tsarist aristocracy or of post-Soviet elites, signified above all by caviar, or on the other hand of poverty and hunger--of cabbage and potatoes and porridge. Both of these visions have a basis in reality, but both are incomplete. The history of food and drink in Russia includes fasts and feasts, scarcity and, for some …
Systems and Cybernetics

Systems Approaches to Making Change: A Practical Guide

Martin Reynolds and Sue Holwell (Retired)

Hosted by Kevin Lindsay
Practitioners from all professional domains are increasingly confronted with incidences of systemic failure, yet poorly equipped with appropriate tools and know-how for understanding such failure, and the making of systemic …
Early Modern History

The Bookshop of the World

Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen

Hosted by Ryan Shelton
After a turbulent political revolt against the military superpower of the early modern world, the tiny Dutch Republic managed to situate itself as the dominant printing and book trading power …
Jewish Studies

Nahmanides

Law and Mysticism

Moshe Halbertal

Hosted by Michael Morales
Rabbi Moses ben Nahman (1194–1270), known in English as Nahmanides and by the acronym the Ramban, was one of the most creative kabbalists, one of the deepest and most original …
Eastern European Studies

Milan Rastislav Štefánik

The Slovak National Hero and Co-Founder of Czechoslovakia

Michal Kšiňan

Hosted by Leslie Waters
Michal Kšiňan’s Milan Rastislav Štefánik: The Slovak National Hero and Co-Founder of Czechoslovakia is the first scientific biography of Milan Rastislav Štefánik (1880–1919) that is focused on analyzing the process …
Archaeology

Olga Tufnell’s 'Perfect Journey'

Letters and Photographs of an Archaeologist in the Levant and Mediterranean

John D.M. Green and Ros Henry

Hosted by Samuel Pfister
Olga Tufnell (1905–85) was a British archaeologist working in Egypt, Cyprus, and Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s, a period often described as a golden age of archaeological discovery. Tufnell …
General History

The Culture of Dissent in Restoration England

The Wonders of the Lord

George Southcombe

Hosted by Ryan Shelton
After over a decade of king-less government, civil war, and political and religious revolution, the restoration of the Stuart monarchy created a complex situation for those religious dissenters who had enjoyed …
Ideas Roadshow Podcast

Constitutional Investigations

Linda Colley

Hosted by Howard Burton
Constitutional Investigations is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Linda Colley, the Shelby M.C. Davis 1958 Professor of History at Princeton University. Linda Colley is a …
Economic and Business History

Shredding Paper

The Rise and Fall of Maine's Mighty Paper Industry

Michael G. Hillard

Hosted by Jason Newton
From the early twentieth century until the 1960s, Maine led the nation in paper production. The state could have earned a reputation as the Detroit of paper production, however, the …
Literature

The Thin Ledge

A Husband’s Memoir of Love, Trauma, and Unexpected Circumstances

Daniel Shapiro

Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb
Daniel Shapiro was a successful attorney in his early forties when his wife, Susan, suffered a brain bleed and a diagnosis that her future was uncertain. Stunned, and with three …
Sociology

Against White Feminism

Notes on Disruption

Rafia Zakaria

Hosted by Deidre Tyler
Elite white women have branded feminism, promising an apolitical individual empowerment along with sexual liberation and satisfaction, LGBTQ inclusion, and racial solidarity. As Rafia Zakaria expertly argues in Against White Feminism …
Geography

Mapping Beyond Measure

Art, Cartography, and the Space of Global Modernity

Simon Ferdinand

Hosted by Stentor Danielson
In Mapping Beyond Measure: Art, Cartography, and the Space of Global Modernity (U Nebraska Press, 2019), Simon Ferdinand analyzes diverse map-based works of painting, collage, film, walking performance, and digital drawing, made in …
Book of the Day/ South Asian Studies

The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600–1750

David Veevers

Hosted by Samee Siddiqui
This is an important, revisionist account of the origins of the British Empire in Asia in the early modern period. In The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600-1750 (Cambridge University Press, 2020), David Veevers uncovers a hidden world of transcultural interactions between servants of the English East India Company and the Asian communities and states they came into contact with, revealing how it was this integration of Europeans into non-European economies …
European Studies

Monetary Policy in Times of Crisis

A Tale of Two Decades of the European Central Bank

Massimo Rostagno et al.

Hosted by Tim Jones
In July 2021, nine summers after its then president saved the euro with three choice words (“whatever it takes”), the European Central Bank published the results of a thoroughgoing …
European Studies

The Success and Failure of Right-Wing Populist Parties in the Benelux Countries

Léonie de Jonge

Hosted by Tim Jones
"The populist radical right is by far the best-studied party family within political science”. Extremism expert Cas Mudde may be right but, as Léonie de Jonge argues in The Success and Failure …
Anthropology

Boasians at War

Anthropology, Race, and World War II

Anthony Q. Hazard

Hosted by Alex Golub
The realities of race that continue to plague the United States have direct ties to the anthropology. Anthropologists often imagine their discipline as inherently anti-racist and historically connected to …
World Christianity

Imagining Persecution

Why American Christians Believe There Is a Global War Against Their Faith

Jason Bruner

Hosted by Byung Ho Choi
Many American Christians have come to understand their relationship to other Christian denominations and traditions through the lens of religious persecution. Jason Bruner's Imagining Persecution: Why American Christians Believe There …
Law

Myanmar's Enemy Within

Buddhist Violence and the Making of a Muslim 'Other'

Francis Wade

Hosted by Jane Richards
In 2017, Myanmar's military launched a campaign of widespread targeted violence against its Rohingya minority. The horrific atrocities was later described by United Nations experts as genocide. This had been building …
Critical Theory

There Is No Unhappy Revolution

The Communism of Destitution

Marcello Tarì

Hosted by Stephen Dozeman
The Marxist philosopher Theodor Adorno once quipped that much of his work was written without practical applications in mind, and that the constant demand for immediate practical relevance felt like …
Middle Eastern Studies

Arab Conquests and Early Islamic Historiography

The Futuh Al-Buldan of Al-Baladhuri

Ryan J. Lynch

Hosted by Christopher Rose
Of the available sources for Islamic history published before the 9th century of the Christian Era, few are of greater importance than Kitab Futuh al-Buldan (The Book of the Conquest …
African Studies

Kwame Anthony Appiah

Christopher J. Lee

Hosted by Esperanza Brizuela-Garcia
Kwame Anthony Appiah is among the most respected philosophers and thinkers of his generation. In Kwame Anthony Appiah (Routledge, 2021), Christopher Lee introduces the reader not only to the contributions …
Ideas Roadshow Podcast

The Two Cultures, Revisited

Stefan Collini

Hosted by Howard Burton
The ‘Two Cultures’ debate of the 1960s between C.P. Snow and F.R. Leavis is one of the most misunderstood intellectual disputes of the 20th century. Most people think that the …
East Asian Studies

Cinema Off Screen

Moviegoing in Socialist China

Chenshu Zhou

Hosted by Victoria Lupascu
At a time when what it means to watch movies keeps changing, this book offers a case study that rethinks the institutional, ideological, and cultural role of film exhibition, demonstrating …
Book of the Day/ Critical Theory

Eating in Theory

Annemarie Mol

Hosted by Kai Wortmann
As we taste, chew, swallow, digest, and excrete, our foods transform us, while our eating, in its turn, affects the wider earthly environment. In Eating in Theory (Duke UP, 2021), Annemarie Mol takes inspiration from these transformative entanglements to rethink what it is to be human. Drawing on fieldwork at food conferences, research labs, health care facilities, restaurants, and her own kitchen table, Mol reassesses the work of authors such …
Economics

Welfare for Autocrats

How Social Assistance in China Cares for Its Rulers

Jennifer Pan

Hosted by Peter Lorentzen
Development economists have been doing intensive research in recent years on conditional cash transfer programs as a tool to help get people out of poverty. Meanwhile in the US there …
Sociology

How Green Became Good

Urbanized Nature and the Making of Cities and Citizens

Hillary Angelo

Hosted by Richard Ocejo
As projects like Manhattan's High Line, Chicago's 606, China's eco-cities, and Ethiopia's tree-planting efforts show, cities around the world are devoting serious resources to urban greening. Formerly neglected urban spaces and …
World Christianity

Protestants, Gender and the Arab Renaissance in Late Ottoman Syria

Deanna Ferree Womack

Hosted by Byung Ho Choi
The Ottoman Syrians - residents of modern Syria and Lebanon - formed the first Arabic-speaking Evangelical Church in the region. Deanna Ferree Womack's book Protestants, Gender and the Arab Renaissance in …
Academic Life

Pandemic Perspectives from a Student Studying Abroad

An interview with Emma Halfin of Case Western Reserve University

Emma Halfin

Hosted by Christina Gessler
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts …
Ideas Roadshow Podcast

The Value of Voice

Nick Couldry

Hosted by Howard Burton
The Value of Voice is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Nick Couldry, Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory in the Department of Media and …
Political Science

Phantoms of a Beleaguered Republic

The Deep State and the Unitary Executive

Stephen Skowronek, John A. Dearborn, and Desmond King

Hosted by Lilly Goren
Phantoms of a Beleaguered Republic: The Deep State and the Unitary Executive (Oxford UP, 2021) helps us think about the complexity of the American political system that has grown up over …
Asian Review of Books

We Shall Be Masters

Russian Pivots to East Asia from Peter the Great to Putin

Chris Miller

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
Russia’s position between Europe and Asia has led to differing conceptions of “what Russia is” to its leaders. Russia’s vast holdings east of the Urals have often inspired those who …
Dan Hill's EQ Spotlight

Choosing Courage

The Everyday Guide to Being Brave at Work

Jim Detert

Hosted by Dan Hill
Retaining Freedom After Speech Today I talked to Jim Detert about his book Choosing Courage: The Everyday Guide to Being Brave at Work (Harvard Business Review Press, 2021) Jim Detert is …
Indian Religions

The Viṣṇu Purāṇa

Ancient Annals of the God with Lotus Eyes

McComas Taylor

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Listen in as we speak with McComas Taylor (Associate Professor and Reader in Sanskrit, The Australian National University) about his brand-new translation of the Viṣṇu Purāṇa. This is the second …
Australian and New Zealand Studies

Creating God

The Birth and Growth of Major Religions

Robin Derricourt

Hosted by Bede Haines
What do we really know about how and where religions began, and how they spread?  Robin Derricourt considers the birth and growth of several major religions, using history and archaeology …
Gender Studies

Hijras, Lovers, Brothers

Surviving Sex and Poverty in Rural India

Vaibhav Saria

Hosted by Shraddha Chatterjee
Hijras, one of India’s third gendered or trans populations, have been an enduring presence in the South Asian imagination—in myth, in ritual, and in everyday life, often associated in stigmatized …
Biography

Philip Payton

The Father of Black Harlem

Kevin McGruder

Hosted by Dan Hill
Today I talked to Kevin McGruder about his new book Philip Payton: The Father of Black Harlem (Columbia UP, 2021) In a moment of hope, even faith, African-Americans inspired by Booker T …
Biblical Studies

Jesus

The Incarnation of the Word

David C Mitchell

Hosted by Michael Morales
Did the prophets foretell a priestly Messiah? Who was the mysterious figure of Melchizedek? In his new book, Jesus: The Incarnation of the Word, David Mitchell uses exegetical acumen and his …
Book of the Day/ Mathematics

What Is a Complex System?

James Ladyman and K. Wiesner

Hosted by Cory Brunson
While i find it pretty easy to recognize when i'm reading articles in complexity science, i've never been satisfied by definitions of complexity and related concepts. I'm not alone! Researchers' own attempts to define complex systems incorporate a mix of folk wisdom and fraught assumptions anchored to a menagerie of contested examples. The field was ripe for a 2013 article proposing a unified account of complexity, and it's no less …
Indian Ocean World

What Is Religious Authority?

Cultivating Islamic Communities in Indonesia

Ismail Fajrie Alatas

Hosted by Kelvin Ng
What Is Religious Authority?: Cultivating Islamic Communities in Indonesia (Princeton UP, 2021) by Ismail Fajrie Alatas draws on groundbreaking anthropological insights to provide a new understanding of Islamic religious authority, showing …
Islamic Studies

The Emperor Who Never Was

Dara Shukoh in Mughal India

Supriya Gandhi

Hosted by SherAli Tareen
In her magnificent and lyrical new book, The Emperor Who Never Was: Dara Shukoh in Mughal India (Harvard UP, 2020), Supriya Gandhi reorients and adds unprecedented depth to our understanding of …
General History

Writing Kit Carson

Fallen Heroes in a Changing West

Susan Lee Johnson

Hosted by Jennifer Davis Cline
Jennifer Holland (Associate Professor, University of Oklahoma) speaks with Susan Johnson (Harry Reid Endowed Chair, History of the Intermountain West, University of Las Vegas-Nevada) about Johnson’s recent book, Writing Kit Carson …
General History

The Persistence of Party

Ideas of Harmonious Discord in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Max Skjönsberg

Hosted by Ryan Tripp
Political parties are taken for granted today, but how was the idea of party viewed in the eighteenth century, when core components of modern, representative politics were trialled? From Bolingbroke …
Performing Arts

The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic

Jessica Hopper

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Throughout her career, spanning more than two decades, Jessica Hopper, a revered and pioneering music critic, has examined women recording and producing music, in all genres, through an intersectional feminist …
General History

The United States Army and the Making of America

From Confederation to Empire, 1775-1903

Robert Wooster

Hosted by Douglas Bell
The story of how the American military—and more particularly the regular army—has played a vital role in the late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century United States that extended beyond the battlefield is …
Ideas Roadshow Podcast

The Science of Siren Songs

Stradivari Unveiled

Joseph Curtin

Hosted by Howard Burton
The Science of Siren Songs: Stradivari Unveiled is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and master violinmaker and acoustician Joseph Curtin, recipient of a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship …
Intellectual History

Of Thee I Sing

The Contested History of American Patriotism

Ben Railton

Hosted by Hettie V. Williams
Ben Railton's book Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) is a cogently written history of the idea of American patriotism. Railton argues that there …
Nordic Asia Podcast

Teaching Cross-Cultural Communication

Understanding Asia in Pandemic Times

Annelise Ly

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Teaching cross-cultural communication is challenging at the best of times, but how can Nordic students learn to engage with Asian cultures when they are forced to study entirely online? Award-winning …
The Common Magazine

The Good Donkey

Talia Lakshmi Kolluri

Hosted by Emily Everett
Talia Lakshmi Kolluri speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “The Good Donkey,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. In this conversation, Kolluri talks about writing fiction …
General History

France

A Short History

Jeremy Black

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
A short and entertaining narrative of France from prehistory to the present, recounting the great events and personalities that helped create France’s cultural and political influence today. Country and destination …