Sign-In
Cart
In France Profound: The Long History of a House, a Mountain Town, and a People
Audio Book
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
Publisher: Audio Holdings
Published: Sep 10 2024
Language: English
From the National Book Award-longlisted author of Finding Florida, a sparkling, sweeping chronicle of the author's life and discoveries in an ancient town in Deep France, from nearby prehistoric caves to medieval dynastic struggles to the colorful characters populating the area today
When T. D. Allman purchased an 800-year-old house in the mountain village of Lauzerte in southwestern France, he aimed to find refuge from the world's tumults. Instead, he found that humanity's most telling melodramas, from the paleolithic to the post-modern, were graven in its stones and visible from its windows.
Indeed, the history of France can be viewed from the perspective of Lauzerte and its surrounding area--just as Allman, from one window, can see Lauzerte unfold before him in the Place des Cornières, where he watches performances of the opera Tosca and each Saturday buys produce from Fred, the Foie Gras Guy; while from the other side facing the Pyrenees he surveys the fated landscape that generated many events giving birth to the modern world. The dynastic struggles of Eleanor of Aquitaine, he finds, led to Lauzerte's remarkably progressive charter issued in 1241, which even then enshrined human rights in its 51 articles. From Eleanor's marriage to English king Henry II in 1154 dates the never-ending melodrama pitting English arrogance against French resistance; in 2016 Brexit demonstrated that this perpetual contretemps is another of the vaster conditions life in Lauzerte illuminates. Allman chronicles the many conflicts that have swirled in the region, from the Catholic Church's genocidal campaign to wipe out heresy there; to France's own 16th-century Wars of Religion, which saw hundreds massacred in the town square, some inside his house; to World War II, during which Lauzerte was part of Nazi-occupied Vichy.
In prose as crystalline as his view to the Pyrenees on a clear day, Allman animates Lauzerte and its surrounding communities--Cahors, Moissac, Montauban--all ever in thrall to the magnetic impulse of Paris. Witness to so many dramas over the centuries, his house comes alive as a historical protagonist in its own right, from its wine-cellar cave to the roof where he wages futile battle with pigeons, to the life lessons it conveys. The onward march of history, my House keeps demonstrating, never takes a rest, he observes, pulling us vividly into his world.
2 different editions
Also available
In France Profound: The Long History of a House, a Mountain Town, and a People
Allman, T. D.
Paperback
In France Profound: The Long History of a House, a Mountain Town, and a People
Allman, T. D.
Hardcover
Also from
Allman, T. D.
Also in
French History
Art of the Defeat: France 1940-1944
Jane Marie Todd (translator)
Laurence Bertrand Dorleac (author)
Hardcover
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Purnell, Sonia
Paperback
The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland
Young, Michelle
Hardcover
The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland
Young, Michelle
Paperback
The Hotel on Place Vendome: Life, Death, and Betrayal at the Hotel Ritz in Paris
Mazzeo, Tilar J.
Paperback
A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France
Moorehead, Caroline
Paperback
The Dark Side of France: A History of the French Far Right from the 1890s to the Present
O'Doherty, Enda
Hardcover
Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure
Kladstrup, Petie
Kladstrup, Donald
Paperback
The First Emancipation: The Forgotten History of Abolition in Revolutionary France
Popkin, Jeremy D.
Hardcover
Beyond the Ocean: France and the Atlantic World from the Crusades to the Age of Revolutions
Hodson, Christopher
Rushforth, Brett
Hardcover
A Bite-Sized History of France: Gastronomic Tales of Revolution, War, and Enlightenment
Hénaut, Stéphane
Mitchell, Jeni
Paperback
Josephine Baker's Secret War: The African American Star Who Fought for France and Freedom
Diamond, Hanna
Hardcover
The People's Justice: Revolutionary Law and the Founding of the French Republic
Hesse, Carla
Hardcover
Napoleon's Letters to Josephine, 1796-1812: Complete and Unabridged (Warbler Classics Annotated Edition)
Bonaparte, Napoleon
Paperback
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918
Barthas, Louis
Paperback
From Ancient Gaul to Canada: A Trip Through the Enchanting History of French Canadians
Kish, Dennis
Paperback
Walking Through the Ages of Paris: Ten Historical Walking Tours Across the City of Light
Kelley, Russell
Paperback
The First Total War: Napoleon's Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It
Bell, David A.
Paperback
Devil's Guard: The Fascinating, True Story of the French Foreign Legion's Nazi Battalion
Elford, George R.
Paperback
The Last Empress of France: The Rebellious Life of Eugénie de Montijo
Resnick, Evelyne
Kladstrup, Petie
Hardcover
The Leopard in the Garden: Animal and Human Lives in Paris at the First Public Zoo of the Modern Era
Burkhardt, Richard W., Jr.
Hardcover
Dancing to the Precipice: The Life of Lucie de la Tour Du Pin, Eyewitness to an Era
Moorehead, Caroline
Paperback
J'Accuse: A Medieval Crime and the Servant Girl Who Changed History
Thibodeaux, Jennifer D.
Hardcover
From Occupation to Integration: Recivilizing the French Zone of Post-Nazi Germany, 1945-1955
Flanagan, Drew
Hardcover
The Napoleonic Wars: An Enthralling Guide to Global Conflict, Revolutionary Tactics, and the Empire's Expansion
Wellman, Billy
Hardcover
And There Was Light: The Extraordinary Memoir of a Blind Hero of the French Resistance in World War II
Lusseyran, Jacques
Paperback
Napoleon's Closet: The Emperor, the Priest, and the Men Who Invented Modern Fashion
Waller, Margaret
Paperback
Fashion Victims: Dress at the Court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette
Chrisman-Campbell, Kimberly
Paperback
Passionate Minds: Emilie du Chatelet, Voltaire, and the Great Love Affair of the Enlightenment
Bodanis, David
Paperback
Who Will Rescue Us?: The Story of the Jewish Children Who Fled to France and America During the Holocaust
Hobson Faure, Laura
Hardcover
Matriarchal Societies of the Past and the Rise of Patriarchy: West Asia and Europe
Goettner-Abendroth, Heide
Hardcover
Napoleon's Letters to Josephine: Correspondence of War, Politics, Family and Love 1796-1814
Hall, Henry Foljambe
Paperback
Six Armies in Normandy: From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris; June 6 - Aug. 5, 1944; Revised
Keegan, John
Paperback
Herald of a Restless World: How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People
Herring, Emily
Hardcover
The Mapmaker's Wife: A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the Amazon
Whitaker, Robert
Paperback
City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris
Tucker, Holly
Paperback
Rival Modernities: Fin-De-Siècle Celebrity and the United States in the French National Imagination
Datta, Venita
Paperback