Extrait : "A Paris gravitent les grandes individualités, s'agitent les graves affaires, se développent les fortes passions. Là, apparaissent dans toute leur énergie les audacieux caractères, les âmes vigoureusement trempées ; là, les ambitions les plus ardentes se combattent, se jouent et se surpassent les unes les autres."

Primary source

Collects some of the best oratory from American history, including such speeches as Roosevelt's "Day of Infamy," King's "I Have a Dream," and Reagan's "Tear Down This Wall."

Examines the key role dissent has played in shaping the United States, focusing on those who, from colonial times to the present, dissented against the ruling paradigm of their time, responding to what they saw as the injustices that prevented them from fully experiencing their vision of America. --Publisher's description.

The Silk Road is as iconic in world history as the Colossus of Rhodes or the Suez Canal. But what was it, exactly? It conjures up a hazy image of a caravan of camels laden with silk on a dusty desert track, reaching from China to Rome. The reality was different-and far more interesting-as revealed in this new history. In The Silk Road, Valerie Hansen describes the remarkable archeological finds that revolutionize our understanding of these trade routes....

In this book the author, a Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer, investigates American origin stories from John Smith's account of the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to Barack Obama's 2009 inaugural address, in order to show how American democracy is bound up with the history of print. It excavates the origins of everything from the paper ballot and the Constitution to the I.O.U. and the dictionary. It presents readings of Benjamin Franklin's...