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Tag Archives: Montesquieu
catherine: rule by parlor trick
1787. Catherine’s triumphal tour to the Crimea. Catherine’s boat ride. The Empress was showing off the wonders of her realm, and they were many indeed. But were they real or were they fake. Only Potemkin knew for sure, and he … Continue reading
Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion
Tagged Anne Baxter, Catherine the Great, Ernst Lubitsch, F.M. Grimm, Friedrich Melchior Grimm, General Potemkin, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Montesquieu, otto preminger, Tallulah Bankhead, vincent price, Virginia Rounding, William Eythe
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ever since Abraham gave Ishmael the boot
There has been a couple of articles over the past several months in Haaretz, the Israeli secular left wing daily that try to confront the issue of co-existence with the Palestinians and of course the larger Islamic world from the … Continue reading
Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion
Tagged Andrew Bostom, benjamin disraeli, Benny Morris Historian, Benzion Netanyahu, Cairo Geniza, doug saunders globe and mail, Fouad Ajami, Golden Age of Muslim Spain, Heinrich Graetz, Jane Gerber, Maimonides, Maimonides in Egypt, Marcel Duchamp, Martin Buber, meron benvenisti, Montesquieu, Moritz Steinschneider, Nicky Larkin director, Pierre Bayle, Piet Mondrian, Robert Wistrich, Shlomo Dov Goiten, Voltaire
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tencin: high wire act between rationalism and passion
“My menagerie,” Alexandrine Tencin called her salon; her guests were “mes betes.” Her Tuesdays she filled with good talk, high spirits, and low comedy involving chamber pots and such. Her leisure she filled with literature, the recourse of the bored. … Continue reading
Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion
Tagged Abbe Dubois, Abbe Raynal, Abbe Tencin, Charlotte Lennox, Claudine Alexandrine Guerin de Tencin, Francois Boucher, francois boucher paintings, Guillaume Thomas Francois abbe Raynal, Jean-Honore Fragonard, La Fresnais and Mme de Tencin, Lord Chesterfield, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Milton Albrecht, Mme de Tencin, Montesquieu, Peter Gay, Regent Fontenelle, Rene Vaillot, Renee Vaillot, Renee Winegarten, Voltaire
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liberation: french identity on the short leash
The liberation of Mme de Tencin. From convent to court, from bank to boudoir, she was always prone to argue. It was the end of the Louis XIV reign, a hey-day of cynical license that characterized the Regency period that … Continue reading
Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion
Tagged Abbe Dubois, Abbe Prevost, Abbe Raynal, Abbe Tencin, Chevalier Destouches, Claudine Alexandrine Guerin de Tencin, Claudine de Tencin, D'Alembert, Fontenelle, Helvetius, Jean Antoine Watteau, Jean Le Rond, John Law The Mississippi Bubble, La Fresnais and Mme de Tencin, La Fresnais suicide, Lord Bolingbroke, Lord Chesterfield, Manon Lescaut, Marivaux, Matthew Prior, Mme de Tencin, Montesquieu, Pyramus-and-Thisbe, Voltaire, Voltaire in the Bastille
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a motionless world of time between
Jean Jacques Rousseau and his Noble Savage. The supposed “enlightened” thinking, of liberal democratic godfathers like David Hume and Immanuel Kant filled with racist delusions. At the opposing spectrum is a Martin Heidegger and the counter-enlightenment which was basically philosophic … Continue reading
Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Music/Composition/Performance
Tagged Allen Ginsberg, Ballet Africain, Cameroon native dancing, chad native dancing, David Hume, Don Ulloa, emmanuel faye, Hannah Arendt, ivory coast native dancing, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Martin Heidegger, Michel Huet, Montesquieu, sudan native dancing, west cameroon independence
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get rich quick : bubbles in biloxi
He was brilliant. But he was something of a scoundrel. Some of the ideas were there that bore resemblance to John Maynard Keynes. Some of the ideas were there that resembled the classic stock swindle and Ponzi scheme, mortgage backed … Continue reading
Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion
Tagged Bernard Madoff, Jean Antoine Watteau, John Law, John Law Mississippi Bubble, John Maynard Keynes, Lady Catherine Senor, Lord Banbury, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Montesquieu, Niall Ferguson, Philippe d'Orleans, Voltaire, William Hogarth
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mega millions for all
John Law. He rescued France from ruin, then ruined her again by basing prosperity on credit with the famous Mississippi bubble. He showed us how the future could not work: today’s examples would be the tech bubble of 2000, the … Continue reading
Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion
Tagged bretton woods system, John Law, John Law The Mississippi Bubble, joseph stieglitz, Lady Catherine Senor, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Mississippi Bubble, Montesquieu, Niall Ferguson, Paul Krugman, Philiipe d'Orleans, Voltaire
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Napoleon and the revolt agianst togetherness
October 1810. The book was censored and then it was banned. So many representations and so much insistence overtaxed his patience. In order to give a definite answer to the petitioners, he took the book up again and lost his … Continue reading
Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Modern Arts/Craft
Tagged Antoine-Jean Gros, Chateaubriand, colnaghi, francois gerard, Jean Jacques Rousseau, joseph chinard, madame recamier, Maximilien Robespierre, mirabeau, mme de Stael, Mme Germaine de Stael, Montesquieu, Napoleon, Napoleon Bonaparte, prince august of prussia, Rene Chateaubriand, Rene Magritte, rene magritte madame recamier de david, Robespierre
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sympathy for the unwashed: springtime for voltaire?
Voltaire. The name conjures up many associations. Intelligent, radical, revolutionary. But who really was Voltaire? …. He was not, as has been said,a profound thinker. He taught men to question every legend, every conventional idea transmitted to them by their … Continue reading
Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion
Tagged arab revolution, arab spring, arab voltaire, france pantheon, frederick the great voltaire, French Revolution, Jacques-Louis David, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Montesquieu, raymond trousson, two daughters of calas, Voltaire, Voltaire Candide, voltaire funeral, voltaire la pucelle, voltaire racine
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