2016
C
reated in 1827, Editions Perrin has, from its beginnings, catered to a readership of history lovers, researchers and teachers. An initial specialty was the publication of the speeches of the Académie Française and early works included those of: Tolstoy, Augustin Thierry, François Mauriac and René Grousset. Today, Perrin is the leading history publisher in France – with a catalogue featuring chronicles and biographies, general syntheses and monographies, memoirs and essays. It offers both highly accessible and more demanding historical works. The paperback collection « Tempus » was created in 2002 and counts more than 500 titles, it is a rich illustration of Perrin’s editorial span and can be said to constitute the history lover’s ideal library.
www.editions-perrin.fr
FOREIGN RIGHTS Rights Director of Perrin Rebecca Byers rebecca.byers@edi8.fr + 33 (0)1 44 16 08 90
Contents GENERAL HISTORY
MILITARY HISTORY
6 The Great Duels that made the World
26 A New History of the Foreign Legion
EDITED BY ALEXIS BRÉZET &
PATRICK DE GMLINE
VINCENT TRÉMOLET DE VILLERS
7 A World History of Economic Conflict
27 Dictionary of Strategy ARNAUD BLIN & GÉRARD CHALIAND
ALI LAÏDI
8 Paris the Red RÉMI KAUFFER
9 The Vatican vs. Totalitarianism 1917-1989
ANCIENT & MEDIEVAL HISTORY 30 Death of the Caesars
FRÉDÉRIC LE MOAL
JOËL SCHMIDT
10 History of the Consulate and the First Empire
31 Expelling the Jews: All the better to reign
JEAN-PHILIPPE REY
11 The Saga of the Saxe-Coburgs
JULIETTE SIBON
PATRICK WEBER
12 Contested History JEAN SÉVILLIA
BIOGRAPHIES 34 Joseph Bonaparte THIERRY LENTZ
ST
ND
1 AND 2 WORLD WARS 14 1918, Strange Victory JEAN-YVES LE NAOUR
15 Ordinary Heroes MAURIN PICARD
16 Every Last Secret of the IIIrd Reich FRANÇOIS KERSAUDY & YANNIS KADARI
THE UNITED STATES
35 Clausewitz BRUNO COLSON
36 Germanicus YANN RIVIÈRE
37 Jesus FRANÇOIS TAILLANDIER
38 Rasputin ALEXANDRE SUMPF
39 The Women of Versailles ALEXANDRE MARAL
18 First Ladies NICOLE BACHARAN & DOMINIQUE SIMONNET
19 American Presidents
ALBUMS
GEORGES AYACHE
42 1917, the Year that Changed the World
20 The American Century
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE BUISSON
PIERRE MELANDRI
43 Japan MICHAEL LUCKEN
RUSSIA 22 Russia under the Tsars EMMANUEL HECHT
23 The Secrets of the Kremlin BERNARD LECOMTE
44 The Century of Coronations JEAN DES CARS
GENERAL HISTORY
The Great Duels that made the World Edited by Alexis Brézet & Vincent Trémolet de Villers
Two contenders for one position of power. General
October 2016
History
380 pages
History, essentially tragic, is often embodied in the clash of two titans: their personal rivalries, running deep and escalating to hatred, are superimposed on their country’s power struggles. Under the direction of Alexis Brézet and Vincent Trémolet de Villers, prominent historians and journalists from Le Figaro pool their resources to tell twenty stories that changed history, from ancient times to today.
PERRIN 2016
CONTENTS
6
10. Louis XIV / William of Orange: JeanChristian Petitfils
1.
Darius / Alexander: Arnaud Blin
2.
Hannibal / Scipio: Eric Treguier
11. Frederic II / Marie-Theresa: Jean-Paul Bled
3.
Augustus / Cleopatra: Jean-Louis Voisin
12. Napoleon / Alexander I: Thierry Lentz
4.
Philip Augustus / John Lackland: Georges Minois
5.
Saladin / Baudouin: Sylvain Gouguenheim
6.
The Pope and the Emperor: Gregory VII/Henry IV : Sylvain Gouguenheim
7.
Charles V / Francis I: Didier le Fur
8.
Henry VIII / Thomas More: Bernard Cottret
9.
Philip II / Elizabeth I : Jean-François Solnon
13. Bismarck / Napoleon III: Arnaud Teyssier 14. William II/ Nicolas II: Jean des Cars 15. Stalin / Trotsky: Rémi Kauffer 16. Churchill / Hitler: François Kersaudy 17. Stalin / Tito: Jean-Christophe Buisson 18. Kennedy / Khrushchev: Georges Ayache 19. Bush / Saddam Hussein: Pierre Razoux 20. Gorbachev / Yeltsin: Bernard Lecomte
A World History of Economic Conflict from Prehistory to Today
Ali Laïdi For the first time, an account of the violence of economic relations in the world, from the Middle Ages to today.
General
September 2016
History
500 pages
ALI LAÏDI hosts the Journal de l’Intelligence économique on the TV channel France 24, and is a researcher at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS). To obtain his doctorate in political science, he defended a thesis at the Sorbonne on the economic war in international relations. He
The world is at war, an economic war involving States and big business. Most economists steadfastly refuse to pay any attention to this war. As if competition, god-like, could do no wrong. Yet this is not a nebulous concept or an invention: the economic war is a fact that newspapers report on daily, without revealing its significance: Chinese strategy in Africa, the price of gas used as a weapon by Moscow, American air tankers bidding scandal, global competition for arable land…This book is the first global synthesis on this subject, exposing its stakes and risks.
teaches at Sciences Po Paris and lectures regularly at INHESJ and IHEDN. He has already published several books including Les Etats en guerre économique (States in economic warfare, Seuil, 2010) and Aux sources de la guerre économique. Fondements politiques et philosophiques (The sources of economic conflict. Political and philosophical foundations, Armand Colin, 2012).
The book opens with a broad introduction defining the subject and establishing the concept of economic war. The three sections that follow correspond to crucial historical moments that mark turning points in humanity’s trade relations. In the first part, military orders, networks of the Hanseatic League, the structuring of trade around fairs, and the rivalries of the Italian city-states illustrate moments of fierce competition in the Middle Ages. The second part focuses mainly on the great discoveries of the fifteenth century, notably the Indian Ocean trade route. Finally, the third part traces the great economic battles from the Industrial Revolution to the present: the race for hydrocarbons, the war over patents for electricity, the fierce rivalries of railway giants.
PERRIN 2016 7
Paris the Red Rémi Kauffer
From the Commune until today, why and how Paris has harbored so many revolutionaries within its walls. General
October 2016
History
xxx pages
A journalist and member of the editorial board of the magazine Historia, RÉMI KAUFFER is the author of twenty books including, published by Perrin, Le Siècle des quatre empereurs (The century of the four emperors)(2014) and Histoire mondiale des services secrets de l’Antiquité à nos jours (World History of the Secret Service from
PERRIN 2016
antiquity to the present)(2015).
8
Marx, Bakunin, Lenin, and Trotsky; Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping and Ho Chi Minh; Messali Hajj the father of Algerian nationalism, Pol Pot, the jihadists of Charlie Hebdo and the Bataclan: the capital was the city of their apprenticeship, their initiation into politics, conspiracies and terrorism. For some it was the place of their death, natural or not. No less amazing, other foreigners have taken the same Parisian route from revolt to revolution and exile: the Slovak Eugen Fried, Moscow’s eye on the French Communist Party; the Romanian Boris Holban, head of the foreign communist resistance fighters of the Affiche rouge group; Henri Curiel, the Egyptian Third World advocate assassinated in the Latin Quarter in 1978; Carlos, the sinister Venezuelan; Palestinian, Iranian and Lebanese terrorist networks; Abu Nidal’s gunmen who struck on the Rue des Rosiers; the Irishmen of Vincennes; the Italian Red Brigades who killed policemen on the Avenue Trudaine. And, finally, also revolutionary in their own way, the jihadists of today, born among us but resolutely foreign enemies. A gifted narrator and meticulous historian, Rémi Kauffer tells their stories in a series of thrilling chapters.
The Vatican vs. Totalitarianism 1917-1989
Frédéric Le Moal
The Vatican’s stand against the three great totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century. General
September 2016
History
450 pages
FRÉDÉRIC LE MOAL, who holds a doctorate in contemporary history and teaches at the military academy of Saint-Cyr, has published several works including Victor Emmanuel III. Un roi face à Mussolini (A King facing Mussolini)
Stalin’s sarcastic remark “The Pope, how many divisions has he got?” is well-known. Much less so, the retort of Pope Pius XII, at the announcement of the death of the Father of Nations: « Now he can see how many divisions we have up there! » Both contain an element of truth: how could the pitiful Swiss Guard have possibly prevented an invasion of the Vatican? In any case, the order to invade was never given.
(Perrin, 2015) – licensed in Italy to LIBRERIA GORIZIANA.
The originality of this book lies in the study of the battle waged by the Holy See between 1917 and 1991 against the three totalitarian systems that plotted its demise: the Soviet Union, Fascist Italy and the Third Reich. It opens with the little-known pontificate of Benedict XV and ends with that of John Paul II, the pope who came from the communist East. It details the struggles of Pius XI, the caution of Pius XII, and the overtures of John XXIII and Paul VI; it analyzes how the popes have established relationships with very different regimes, from the USSR to the United States, as well as Franco’s Spain and republican France. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 gave the Vatican an extraordinary and lasting prestige. But to get to that point, it had to take several paths, navigate world conflicts, sign agreements with dictatorial regimes while denouncing their ideology, and bargain without compromising itself.
PERRIN 2016 9
History of the Consulate and the First Empire Jean-Philippe Rey Foreword by Thierry Lentz The history of the two regimes ruled by Napoleon, which gave birth to modern France and shaped all of Europe. General
November 2016
History
448 pages
A history professor teaching preparatory classes for the Grandes Ecoles (top French universities), JEAN-PHILIPPE REY has published several books and articles on the First Empire. He organized, with Bruno Benoit, a groundbreaking symposium on Napoleon’s historical importance held on 11
PERRIN 2016
and 12 March 2015 in Lyon.
10
The Consulate and the First Empire unquestionably represent a turning point in European history. Following the Revolution, they form a sort of incubator in the history of the Continent in the nineteenth century by their paradoxical encouragement of liberal and national ideas, and also by their attempt to conceptualize and create a political, social, economic and ideological system on a continental scale. Indeed, Napoleon thought out and gradually constructed a continental system that was applied with varying intensity to different regions depending on their geopolitical importance, their distance from the center and the duration of their subjugation. Far from seeking blindly to impose a uniform model, yet without giving up the modernizing ideal inherited from the Enlightenment and the Revolution, the Emperor knew how to adjust scale. It is the difficulty he experienced in stabilizing this complex system – and perhaps to conceive of its stabilization – that explains his ultimate failure. What is often described as his inability to make peace was rather his incapacity to regulate the momentum that kept the system going by constantly feeding it new conquests and maintaining it, to some degree, under pressure. Within, the effort was immense, ideologically very consistent and largely sustainable. References to numerous studies prompted by the recent bicentenary of the Napoleonic period and the viewpoints of foreign experts, notably British and Italian historians, round out this analysis, skillfully written and enjoyable to read.
The Saga of the SaxeCoburgs Patrick Weber
The incarnation of the European monarchy. General
2016
History
xxx pages
PATRICK WEBER is an art historian, archaeologist and journalist. After studying history of art and archeology, he began a career in journalism. He has published historical novels and scripted films and comics, while teaching the history of the monarchy at Brus-
King Leopold I of the Belgians, Queen Victoria of England, Tsar Boris of Bulgaria – all are descended from the same lineage! After the Habsburgs, Romanovs and Bourbons, the Saxe-Coburgs are the last royal family to have profoundly changed the face of the European monarchy. While they are still sitting on the throne in the UK (Elizabeth II) and Belgium (Philippe), they have also spread out, over time, from the duchy of Coburg to Bulgaria by way of Portugal and countless dynastic unions.
sels University and giving lectures. Since 2011, he is the royalty correspondent for RTL Belgium on TV, radio and the Internet. He lives between Brussels and Paris.
Since the late nineteenth century, under the impetus of strong personalities like Leopold I and Queen Victoria, the Saxe-Coburgs have embodied the revival of the monarchy in a century of revolutions. With weddings, betrayals, legacies and strokes of genius, their turbulent history reads like fiction, filled with contrasting and scintillating characters. Patrick Weber tells their story passionately, giving us a new understanding of dynastic Europe. A saga written and structured like a novel!
PERRIN 2016 11
Contested History Political Correctness under Fire
Jean Sévillia
The three principal historical essays written by Jean Sévillia, updated and combined for the first time in one volume with a new preface. General
September 2016
History
750 pages
Essayist and historian, JEAN SÉVILLIA is deputy editor at Figaro Magazine and a member of the scientific committee of Figaro Histoire. He has many bestselling books to his credit, including, published by Perrin, Zita, impératrice courage (Zita, Empress courage) (1997,2016); Le dernier Empereur Charles d’Autriche (The last Emperor Charles of Austria)(2009,2012);
Jean Sevillia was the first to denounce political correctness applied to the analysis of French history. This approach, inspired by anticlerical republicanism and a certain Marxist creed, has helped forge, according to the author, a monolithic orthodoxy to which he responds with his own vision, enshrined in the great conservative tradition and based on his extensive historical and journalistic culture. All three of these spirited and high-minded essays were well-received by critics and a wide audience; they have contributed to the debate on French history’s Gordian knots from the Crusades to the present day, notably the French Revolution, 1940 and May 68.
and Histoire passionnée de la France (Passionate History of
1.
Historically correct (2003) offers a counter-history of France from the Crusades to the war in Algeria, refuting the popular clichés one by one. With more than 100,000 copies sold, it remains to this day the author’s most successful work. Translated into several languages, it received the Grand Prix Catholique de Littérature (top Catholic prize for literature).
2.
Morally correct (2004) complements and deepens the previous text with a thematic and transversal approach to the main patterns of the dominant way of thinking (individualism, the worship of pleasure, the cult of the pampered child, “the right to (not) work”, “Global Citizens”, cultural politics, etc.).
3.
Intellectual terrorism from 1945 to today, first published in 2000, is deliberately placed at the end of the volume because it establishes the link between history and current events in its attack on the successive trends and passions of the dominant leftist intelligentsia – the Sartrians, in short. Praise for the “good revolutionaries” in the name of anti-colonialism (Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che Guevara et al.) With a consequent, absurd oblivion to the evils of communism. The anarchy and libertarian spirit of 1968 giving birth to a selfish society without values, the cult of the other pushed to the point of self-loathing. The demonization of the right, maintained by the specter of Vichy and the exploitation of the National Front.
PERRIN 2016
France)(2013).
12
Putting these texts together reveals their deep coherence, enhanced by the author’s flowing style.
ST
ND
1 AND 2 WORLD WARS
1918, Strange Victory Jean-Yves Le Naour
A stunning final volume! 1st & 2nd
October 2016
World Wars
XXX pages
JEAN-YVES LE NAOUR holds a doctorate in history and specializes in the Great War. He is the author of numerous books on the subject including Les Soldats
The outcome of the First World War is known to everyone. And yet, by focusing on the doubts, fears and fumbling moves of its protagonists at the time, Jean-Yves Le Naour recounts a year of suspense. With a novelist’s skill, he resurrects the chaotic year that led to a strange Allied victory.
de la honte (Soldiers of shame) published by Perrin, for which he received the best history book award in 2010 Ouest France/ Société Générale.
Three times in the spring of 1918 – in March, April and May – the French and British felt close to defeat. They seemed to be reliving September 1914! There was fighting on the Marne and panic in Paris, which was being bombarded. On all fronts, the situation was fraught: Since March 1918, the peace treaty signed with Bolshevik Russia had released 1 million German troops in the west. A race against time began, with a single objective: to hold on. In 1918, nothing was certain and Germany could still win!
PERRIN 2016
Like the previous volumes, this latest installment, based on previously unpublished accounts, reveals what was going on behind the scenes in politics and the military command: the rivalries between Petain, Foch and the British Douglas Haig, the clash of egos that paralyzed the situation to the point of compromising national defense. The new factor, compared to 1914-1917 – the military was now under the control of Clemenceau and Lloyd George. From one front to the next, Jean-Yves Le Naour takes us all the way to a deceptive victory, in which the joy of peace is overshadowed by the specter of future wars.
14
Ordinary Heroes Maurin Picard
Thirteen veterans - French, American, German, English or Polish - of the Second World War tell their story for the first time. The book gives an identity to the mass of anonymous combatants, by depicting the heroic commitment of men who claim to be ordinary. 1st & 2nd
September 2016
World Wars
350 pages
Journalist MAURIN PICARD is the New York-based US correspondent for the newspaper Le Figaro and an editor of the magazine Guerre et Histoire. Multilingual, he has taken an interest for many years in Second World War veterans of all nationa-
The veterans who give their testimony in this book – men who served in a submarine, a Panzer regiment or a Swordfish squadron – were all actors in a crucial phase of World War II. Included are the Frenchman Léon Gautier, who landed in June 1944 on the Normandy beaches; the American Dutch von Kirk, navigator of the bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945; and tank battalion commander Al Irzyke, who led American forces through the Ardennes forest in December 1944.
lities.
By reaching out to them over a number of years, Maurin Picard earned the trust of these often uncommunicative heroes, until they agreed to tell him about their experience of the Second World War. He then inserted these eyewitness accounts into the description of each military operation, in order to provide context and go beyond the limits of the personal point of view. While revealing the diversity of situations, these stories dramatically illustrate the role men played in this technological war.
PERRIN 2016 15
Every Last Secret of the IIIrd Reich François Kersaudy & Yannis Kadari The two big bestsellers by François Kersaudy and Yannis Kadaris, The secrets of the Third Reich and The last secrets of the Third Reich brought together in one volume. 1st & 2nd
November 2016
World Wars
480 pages
Professor FRANÇOIS KERSAUDY, author of numerous texts on World War II, has written biographies of Churchill, Goering, Mountbatten and MacArthur, and the only book ever written on the relationship between de Gaulle and Churchill. A multilingual historian, he has received eleven French and British literary awards. He directs the collection Maîtres de Guerre (Masters
In this book that comprises the two volumes on the secrets of the Third Reich, François Kersaudy and Yannis Kadaris revisit some mysterious episodes in the history of Nazism. While much has already been written about some of these mysteries, there remained, for each one, questions left unanswered, dark shadows, aspects that were unexplored and even taboo, which merited further investigation...In recounting and revealing the greatest secrets of the Nazi regime and its dignitaries, the authors, with their meticulous attention to detail and their inimitable talent as storytellers, shed new light on the underside of one of the most astounding periods of the twentieth century.
of war) since its creation in 2010. YANNIS KADARI is the founder and head of the press group Caraktère, which publishes five magazines on military history. He wrote a biography of General Patton in the Maîtres de Guerre collection (Perrin), which he codi-
PERRIN 2016
rected from 2011 to 2015.
16
So who wrote Mein Kampf? How were the Nazis planning to destroy the United States? What is known of the Führer’s relationships with women? How did Hitler imagine his new capital, Germania? What was behind the Rudolf Hess case? Who was responsible for the Reichstag fire? What really happened in Hitler’s bunker in April 1945? And much more.
THE UNITED STATES
First Ladies Nicole Bacharan & Dominique Simonnet
How, down through the years, First Ladies have influenced presidential power, and even usurped it.
The United
September 2016
States
380 pages
NICOLE BACHARAN is a historian, political commentator, consultant for television and radio, and the author of numerous books about the United States. Author and journalist DOMINIQUE SIMONNET is the former editorin-chief of the magazine L’Express. She has written some 20 novels and essays. Together, they have written two books published by Perrin that were major hits with critics and readers: Les Secrets de la Maison Blanche (Secrets of the White House, Perrin, 2014) and 11-Septembre, le jour du chaos (9/11, day of chaos, Perrin, 2011).
At first absent from the official portraits or relegated to the sidelines, they have emerged from the shadows to take their place alongside their president husbands, and then advanced to the front of the stage. For two and a half centuries, the First Ladies, flamboyant or retiring, have embodied the long march of women towards equality and power. The authors have tapped into the best American sources, enhanced by numerous interviews and considerable delving into presidential archives, to portray the most emblematic First Ladies and reveal their real influence. Here are, among others, Martha Washington, “founding mother” who forged the symbols of a nation in limbo; feminist Abigail Adams, getting involved in war and peace; the beautiful Dolly Madison, standing firm in the capital in flames, and the young Harriet Lane, niece of a bachelor President, who played the stand-in for his spouse. We get to know the ambitious Mary Lincoln, who acts like an empress; Eleanor Roosevelt, the tireless activist; Jackie Kennedy, the global star; Lady Bird Johnson, an ecologist before her time; Nancy Reagan, the loving wife with an iron hand; Michelle Obama, the ideal partner; and the ambitious, unsinkable Hillary Clinton….Fourteen exceptional women.
PERRIN 2016
A groundbreaking book, at the crossroads of history and current events, written with the talent and thoroughness that made the authors’ previous book on the “Last Secrets of the White House” such a success.
18
American Presidents from Washington to Obama
Georges Ayache
From Washington to Obama, a presidential saga! In its diversity, the history of the American presidents exemplifies that of America as a whole, with its qualities and its excesses. The United
August 2016
States
450 pages
Former diplomat, historian and university professor GEORGES AYACHE is an expert on international affairs. Now a lawyer, he has written several books of contemporary history. Fascinated
The White House in 2016 has known a succession of forty-four presidents. From George Washington, inaugurated in April 1789 before the federal capital that would bear his name was even built, to Barack Obama, first African-American to be elected, the presidency of the United States has been held by a wide variety of individuals.
by American post-war politics, he has already produced a text on the United States in the 1960s, Une histoire américaine (An American story) (Ed. Choiseul, 2010). He also authored Kennedy-Nixon: les meilleurs ennemis (Kennedy-Nixon: best enemies) (Perrin,2012) and Sinatra (Perrin,2014).
Well-educated like Wilson, lacking an academic degree like Truman, or else self-taught as was Lincoln; ordinary citizens raised in log cabins or well-born aristocrats; soldiers, lawyers and engineers; authoritarian extraverts with strong personalities, or bland indecisive types. Born leaders with all the presidential qualities, or unlikely candidates with random skills, elected by chance. An assortment of different personalities, with different destinies. Four presidents assassinated, from Lincoln to Kennedy; others who ended their lives in near poverty, like Grant. One who stepped down, Nixon. Another, Ford, who occupied the White House without being elected president or even vice-president. One-term presidents, rejected by the voters, and others who went on to serve a second term. William Harrison’s presidency lasted only one month, but Roosevelt’s longer than twelve years. Four Nobel prizes, and initials that would outlive their era: TR, FDR, JFK.
PERRIN 2016 19
The American Century Pierre Melandri
Why the 20th Century was American. The United
October 2016
States
xxx pages
A historian and specialist on international relations and the United States, PIERRE MELANDRI is a professor emeritus at Sciences Po Paris. He chaired the Institut d’histoire des relations internationales contemporaines (History of contemporary international relations institute) and co-directed, with Serge Ricard, the American foreign policy observatory at the
On 17 February 1941, in an editorial in Life magazine, the media magnate Henry Luce called on his fellow citizens to make the twentieth century the «American Century.» In his view, their duty was not only to put the world under America’s aegis, in the same way the nineteenth century had been a «British» century. No, the Americans could no longer simply sell cultural and industrial products. Their destiny was to transform the world by spreading their ideals: « a love of freedom, a feeling for equality of opportunity, a tradition of self-reliance and independence and also cooperation», and « the great principles of Western civilization, » « justice, love of truth, the ideal of charity. »
PERRIN 2016
University of Paris III-Sorbonne.
20
Prophet of the new American universalism, Luce was the spokesman for a people shaped by belief in their manifest destiny who chose in the twentieth century to provide global leadership by intervening heavily in both world wars and then standing up against communism. Pierre Melandri tells this story masterfully, weaving together political, economic, military and cultural history. The US «hyper-power» is multiple, innovative and dominant in all domains, from the New Deal to the last computer revolution. And along the way, we get the aircraft carrier, high finance, the H-bomb, Coca Cola, jazz and rock ‘n’ roll ... Yet this model plunged into crisis starting in the 1970s under the combined effect of Watergate and the Vietnam debacle. The author stresses that the idea of the eternal “American decline” must be relativized and measured against the country’s continued and undisputed domination.
MEDIEVAL MEDIEVAL RUSSIA HISTORY HISTORY
Russia under the Tsars from Ivan the Terrible to Vladimir Putin
Edited by Emmanuel Hecht
Absolute power as the key to Russian history. Russia
August 2016 400 pages
EMMANUEL HECHT, historian and journalist, has already edited the two previous books of essays produced with L’Express : Les derniers jours des dictateurs (The dictators’ last days) with Diane Ducret (Perrin, 2012) and Le siècle de sang (Century of blood) with Pierre Servent (Perrin, 2014).
Russia? “Autocracy tempered by assassination”, is the witticism attributed to Astolphe de Custine, author of “Russia in 1839”. Except that absolute power was perpetuated under Communism and more than a trace of it can still be found today in Putin’s Russia. However, any reformer not wielding an iron fist has failed, like Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. Hence the title of this prestigious collective work, bringing together the best historians and journalists from the magazine L’Express. In a series of lively and historically accurate essays, based on the most reliable sources, it depicts the personalities and actions of the eighteen iconic leaders of Russia and the USSR, from the aptlynamed Ivan the Terrible to Vladimir Putin.
PERRIN 2016
CONTENTS
22
9.
Alexander II, by Stéphanie Burgaud
1.
Foreword by Emmanuel Hecht
10. Alexander III, by Lorraine de Meaux
2.
Ivan the Terrible, by Jean-Pierre Arrignon.
11. Nicolas II, by Jean des Cars
3.
Peter the Great, by Thierry Sarmant.
4.
18th Century Tsarinas, by Philippe Delorme.
5.
Catherine II, by Hélène Carrère d’Encausse (Permanent Secretary of the Académie Française).
6.
Paul I, by Thierry Lentz.
7.
Alexander I, by Marie-Pierre Rey.
8.
Nicolas I, by Marie-Pierre Rey
12. Kerensky, by Jean-Christophe Buisson 13. Lenin, by Alexandre Sumpf 14. Stalin, by Nicolas Werth 15. Khrushchev, by Emmanuel Hecht 16. Brezhnev, by Philippe Comte 17. Gorbachev, by Bernard Lecomte 18. Yeltsin, by Irina Federovski 19. Putin, by Christian Makarian.
The Secrets of the Kremlin Bernard Lecomte
So much drama, so many secrets that deserved further investigation. And for such an endeavor prominent Kremlinologist Bernard Lecomte has no equal. Russia
October 2016 xxx pages
The Kremlin. Behind its red brick walls, how many conspiracies, mysteries, crimes and betrayals has the famous Moscow fortress concealed? For nearly a century it has been the center and symbol of the communist empire, founded by Lenin, bolstered by Stalin, managed by Khrushchev and Brezhnev, dismantled by Gorbachev and restored, for better or worse, by Putin. So many questions, shadows, mysteries and forbidden secrets still lurk behind the towers of the Kremlin! Who killed Rasputin? How did Tsar Nicolas II die? How did Stalin kill Trotsky? Who were, really, Kravchenko, Andropov or the “Farewell” spy? Where did Vladimir Putin come from? Instead of a chronological or linear narrative, the author has decided to tell sixteen sensational and classic episodes of this century of fire and blood, combining tragedy and romance.
PERRIN 2016 23
MILITARY HISTORY
A New History of the Foreign Legion Patrick de Gmline
A lively history of the elite French military unit. Military
October 2016
History
500 pages
With some forty books and a dozen literary prizes to his credit, PATRICK DE GMELINE is considered one of the top military historians in France.
The legendary Foreign Legion, elite troop of foreign soldiers commanded by French officers, is admired and envied by every other nation in the world. Since 1831, date of its creation, it has fought on many battlefields. In Mexico and Spain, North Africa and Indochina, the United Arab Emirates and the Pacific. Not to mention France, in 1870 and during the two world wars. This book tells the official but also the behind-the-scenes story of the men who were nicknamed “white caps”, from the unit’s creation until today. Now recognizable by their green berets, these soldiers fight for freedom in external operations and deal with the domestic terrorist threat, providing security in the cities of France.
PERRIN 2016
The fruit of many years of research, this book presents a global view of the Foreign Legion, based on archives and many unpublished or little-known accounts.
26
Dictionary of Strategy Arnaud Blin & Gérard Chaliand
Everything you need to know about a complex subject, explained by the leading experts. Military
November 2016
History
1248 pages
GÉRARD CHALIAND is an expert on strategy issues, particularly asymmetric conflicts, who has contributed significantly to the revitalization of geopolitics and to the understanding of non-Western military strategies. He has published numerous books, inclu-
Based on many years of accumulated expertise and documentation, this Dictionary of strategy presents the principles of strategy, its theorists, the classification of conflicts, the great leaders and the great battles. It embraces all major civilizations over thousands of years. This book is an indispensable tool in these troubled times, when war is omnipresent and takes multiple forms, and the complex strategies of the principal actors in global geopolitics are increasingly difficult to decipher.
ding Atlas stratégique (Strategic Atlas)(Editions Complexe, 1999), Anthologie mondiale de la stratégie (Global anthology of strategy)
This new edition contains thirty new entries, providing the keys to understanding the most recent phenomena: Islamic State, 9/11, Drone, Cyberwar, etc.
(Robert Laffont, 2009), Les Empires nomades (Nomadic Empires) (Perrin, 1998) and Guerre et civilisations (War and Civilizations)(Odile Jacob, 2005). A strategist and specialist in the history of war, ARNAUD BLIN has written several acclaimed books, including Iéna, 1648, La paix de Westphalie (The peace of Westphalia)(Editions Complexe,2006) and Les Batailles qui ont changé history)(Perrin,2014,2016).
PERRIN 2016
l’histoire (Battles that changed
27
ANCIENT & MEDIEVAL HISTORY
Death of the Caesars Joël Schmidt
The last days of the Roman emperors. Ancient &
September 2016
Medieval
300 pages
History JOEL SCHMIDT has written numerous books, including several on the history of the Roman Empire. Perrin recently published his Femmes de pouvoir dans la Rome antique (Powerful women in ancient Rome, Perrin, 2012) and Hadrien (Hadrian, Perrin, 2014).
It is said one’s whole life flashes before one’s eyes at the moment of death. The Roman emperors, depicted here according to how they died, particularly illustrate this observation: in all, seventyone emperors, starting with Caesar in 44 BC, who did not have the title but left his name and his fame to all his successors, and ending with Romulus Augustulus in 476 AD. Murder, disease, slow agony, suicide, sometimes a glorious end facing the enemy, precipitated the last breaths of those who ruled for half a millennium over the entire known world. For each of these emperors, this is the moment to take stock of their lives and their reigns. They try to evaluate them, in the midst of their fever, nightmares and dreams, their suffering, fear, remorse, rage and, for some, their final acts of cruelty.
PERRIN 2016
The author, who remains respectfully close to the source material, often lets the emperors speak for themselves, as he tries to imagine what their final thoughts could have been. Their deaths illuminate their lives. They somehow humanize the Empire of which they were absolute masters. These sovereigns, suddenly stripped of everything, can finally be seen in their rawest truth.
30
Expelling the Jews: All the better to reign Juliette Sibon
How and why, in the Middle Ages, the kings of France expelled and then brought back, six times, the Jews of France. Ancient &
September 2016
Medieval
304 pages
History A lecturer in medieval history at the University of Albi, JULIETTE SIBON obtained her doctorate at the University of Paris X-Nanterre, completing a thesis on the Jews of Marseille in the fourteenth century, under the direction of Henri Bresc.
From Philippe Auguste (in 1182) to Louis XII (1501), the kings of France repeatedly drove out the Jews, then later recalled them, seemingly ambivalent on what their fate should be in the kingdom. Christian intellectuals developed increasingly vicious arguments against Judaism, considered a false and inferior religion. Yet they were ready to keep the Jews within Christendom, with the Pope as the guarantor of their safety.
She is also a director of the Nouvelle Gallia judaica research unit.
These events, although central to the genesis of the modern state in the last centuries of the Middle Ages, remain largely unknown to the general public and are often ignored by medievalists. The book sets out to retrace what happened, identify the political will of decision-makers beyond their personal hatred of Jews and the anti-Judaism dominant in Christian society, grasp the views of intellectuals and the feelings of Christian subjects, try to understand how the victims reacted to these upheavals, and finally to insert the Jews’ particular history in the general history of the kingdom of France at the time of the last Capetian and the first Valois kings.
PERRIN 2016 31
MEDIEVAL BIOGRAPHIES HISTORY
Joseph Bonaparte Thierry Lentz
The extraordinary life of Napoleon’s older brother. Biographies
August 2016 752 pages
Director of the Fondation Napoléon, THIERRY LENTZ has written some thirty books about
PERRIN 2016
the Consulate and the Empire.
34
Joseph Bonaparte (1768-1844) played a key role during the Revolution, then under the rule of his younger brother, Napoleon. A quick overview of his functions in that quarter-century is enough to measure his importance: president of the Ajaccio district, war commissioner, ambassador, parliamentarian, state counselor, senator, grand elector of the Empire, king of Naples, king of Spain, the Emperor’s lieutenant general in 1814, president of the Council of Ministers during the Hundred Days. His active political role was thus crucial, and characterized by a very close relationship to Napoleon. He was perhaps the Emperor’s only friend. Nor did he have a lesser role after 1815, despite leaving Europe for the United States. During his exile that lasted nearly 25 years, he became an influential personality. Increasingly inflexible in his old age, he clashed with his nephew Louis-Napoleon, future Napoleon III. Buried in Florence where he died in 1844, he would eventually rejoin his brother in his tomb under the dome of the Invalides in Paris in 1862. Joseph Bonaparte has yet to be the subject of such an extensive biography. In Napoleonic historiography, he has suffered from the failure of his Spanish reign and from Napoleon’s criticism of him in his letters from Saint Helena. Thierry Lentz brings to this work his extensive knowledge of the facts and the atmosphere of the times as well as research based on previously unpublished archives in France and abroad, as well as an impressive bibliography. By reevaluating and sometimes going against the accepted narrative, the author reestablishes Joseph Bonaparte as brother, man and ruler.
Clausewitz Bruno Colson
The biography of the great theorist of war. Biographies
September 2016 600 pages
BRUNO COLSON is an expert on the Napoleonic wars and the history of strategic thought. A professor at the University of Namur, he has written several studies of Clausewitz. His latest book, Leipzig, la bataille des Nations (16-19 octobre 1813), received the Premier Empire prize from the Fondation Napoléon in 2013. He is also the editor of De la Guerre – a compilation of Napoleon’s military writings translated into English (Oxford University Press), Chinese (Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences), Russian (AST), Portuguese (Record – Brazil), Spanish (La Esfera de los Libros).
As Montesquieu did for law and Newton for physics, Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) founded the systematic study of war as an eternal human phenomenon. His major work, On War, is still read and studied all over the world because of its rare ability not to restrict reflection but to enable it, on the contrary, to develop and adapt to the upheavals of history. Yet the life of Clausewitz – who was both a high-ranking military officer and an exceptional writer – has never been the subject of thorough investigation. The end of the Cold War, German reunification and the partial reconstitution of the Prussian archives, thanks to recent deposits, have delivered new material and made it possible to better understand the man. Far from being a solitary thinker, Clausewitz always maintained strong friendships and influenced some important decisions during the Napoleonic Wars. He also focused his attention on Franco-German relations, having grasped they were at the heart of European problems. His correspondence with his wife Marie is one of the richest of the time. It portrays the modern union of the Clausewitz couple, based on mutual esteem and a relationship of equality and ongoing dialogue. All this is not unrelated to the astonishing modernity of Clausewitz’s ideas.
PERRIN 2016 35
Germanicus Yann Rivière
The book takes on a challenge: to bring back to life and make accessible a character and an era that are vaguely familiar, and yet so remote from us. Biographies
October 2016 576 pages
An expert on the legal and political history of ancient Rome and the former director of antiquity studies at l’Ecole française in Rome, YANN RIVIÈRE is now director of studies at EHESS. Among the books he has published are Le cachot et les fers, Détention et coercition à Rome (The dungeon and shackles, Detention and coercion in Rome) (Belin,2004) and Les délateurs sous l’Empire romain (Informers in the Roman Empire)(Ecole française
PERRIN 2016
de Rome,2002).
36
Germanicus can be seen on the Great Cameo of France, the victorious warrior being welcomed home by his uncle and adoptive father Tiberius and by his grandmother Livia, Augustus’s widow. He was the young prince, the Caesar that Rome and the world were waiting for, once freedom was restored. But Germanicus died in Antioch in the year 19, at the age of 34 and in suspicious circumstances, and his glorious destiny died with him, unfulfilled. Possessing all the republican virtues along with military courage and intellectual prowess, the grand-son of Mark Antony, husband of Agrippina and father of Caligula had risen precociously to the top. Death struck him down at the height of his success, but it may have spared him the kind of bloodthirsty career his relatives were known for. His loss was felt as intensely as the hopes he had inspired. With all the statues, bas-reliefs, medals and inscriptions that were produced in his honor, he could have been a god. And when the ancient world took up Western culture again in the sixteenth century, the name and character of Germanicus came up in music, literature and art far more frequently than his brief passage might warrant. By reconstructing the life of Germanicus, Yann Rivière provides us with a vivid depiction of the Roman Empire at its glorious beginnings. We explore with him the mysteries and intricacies of politics intermingled with religion. He takes us to the heart of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, where genius, madness and murder intermingled.
Jesus François Taillandier
A literary life of Jesus written by a novelist and a believer. Biographies
August 2016 350 pages
Novelist FRANÇOIS TAILLANDIER is best known for writing Anielka (winner of the French Academy novel prize, Stock, 1999) and a suite in five volumes, La Grande Intrigue (The great intrigue, Stock, 20052009). He is also the author of L’Ecriture du monde (Scripture of the world, Stock, 2013), La Croix et le croissant (The Cross and the Crescent, Stock, 2014) and Solstice (Stock,2015) a series hailed by the press as an outstanding achievement in the historical novel category.
Jesus of Nazareth has been described in many ways: a legendary character, an impostor, a sage, a pathological liar, and of course the son of God. “And you, who do you say that I am?” Jesus asks his disciples. Two thousand years later, the question remains and everyone – atheist, skeptic, agnostic or believer – is seeking to answer it. It is as both a novelist and a believer that François Taillandier offers his vision. Sensitive to words, to the construction of narratives and their strength, he returns to the texts that speak of Jesus, the Gospels. One recurrent question guides his thought: who is telling us what? It is indeed strange to consider that in all probability, the authors of these texts never encountered Jesus. They wrote the story of his life decades after his crucifixion in a language that was not his: Greek. And what are we to think of the facts and beliefs recounted, such as the Annunciation, the miracle of Cana, the countless healings and the Resurrection? To approach Jesus, François Taillandier goes back to the original texts in ancient Greek with an attitude of total openness, to the point of courting controversy. In this work, the gaze of the critical reader and that of the “free” Catholic converge so that this presence, this message that changed the course of history, can be extracted from the traditional Christian approach.
PERRIN 2016 37
Rasputin Alexandre Sumpf
A new biography of the most controversial character in Russian history. Biographies
November 2016 380 pages
ALEXANDRE SUMPF is a lecturer in contemporary history at the University of Strasbourg. He attended the prestigious Ecole normale supérieure and holds a doctorate in history. His first books De Lénine à Gagarine. Une histoire sociale de l’URSS (Lenin to Gagarin. A social history of the USSR) (Gallimard, 2013) and La Grande Guerre oubliée. Russie, 1914-1918 (The Great Forgotten War. Russia, 1914-1918) (Perrin,2014) brought him immediate recognition as one of the most promising historians of
PERRIN 2016
his generation.
38
Like Caligula, Grigori Rasputin is one of those characters whose dark and omnipresent legend obscures his real story. The life of the peasant-healer who became a favorite of the imperial couple (Nicolas II and Alexandra) has long fascinated us: his miraculous ability to treat the hemophiliac Tsarevich; his Homeric escapades; his meteoric rise and his mysterious murder, which set the tone for the revolution and eventually led the Romanovs and their autocracy to follow him into the grave. Considered one of the top specialists of Russian and Soviet history, Alexandre Sumpf sets out to investigate, consulting archives and the vast existing bibliography, most of it in Russian. He tells the story of the man first, and then he explores the multiple layers of his demonization, revealing much about the successive metamorphoses of Russia in the twentieth century.
The Women of Versailles Alexandre Maral Foreword by Stéphane Bern For the first time, a book that presents a collective portrait of the women who made Versailles, from Madame de Maintenon to Marie-Antoinette. Biographies
October 2016 350 pages
Archivist and paleographer with a doctorate in the arts, former resident fellow of the French Academy in Rome, ALEXANDRE MARAL is a curator at Versailles, where he is responsible for the sculpture collections. With Perrin, he published in 2012 the book Le Roi-Soleil et Dieu. Essai sur la religion de Louis XIV (The Sun King and God. Essay on the religion of Louis XIV) (foreword by Marc Fumaroli and Pierre-Lafue prize), followed in 2013 by Le roi, la cour et Versailles, 1682-1789. Le coup d’éclat permanent. (The king, the court and Versailles, 1682-1789. Permanent fireworks), and in 2014 Les derniers jours de Louis XIV (The last days of Louis XIV).
Residence of the last three kings of Ancien Régime France, Versailles was also the home of their wives: Maria Theresa, who died there in 1683; Marie Leszczynska, who lived in the chateau from 1725 to 1768; and Marie Antoinette, who married the Dauphin, heir to the throne, in 1770 and reigned as queen from 1774 to 1789. In different ways, these three personalities left their mark on Versailles, particularly Marie Antoinette. Female members of the royal family also played a vital role in Versailles, from the spirited Duchess of Burgundy under Louis XIV to the remarkable daughters of Louis XV. And then there were the other women of Versailles: Madame de Maintenon, who became the secret wife of Louis XIV; the many favorites of Louis XV – Madame de Mailly, Madame du Barry and the invincible Madame de Pompadour; as well as Marie Antoinette’s close friends, particularly the Duchess of Polignac. Imagined and written in the very place they inhabited, this panoramic view of the royal court’s female contingent offers insight into the lifestyle of women in the king’s entourage, a study of their social, cultural and in some cases political roles, and a reflection on their destinies – often improbable and certainly exceptional.
PERRIN 2016 39
ALBUMS
1917, the Year that Changed the World Jean-Christophe Buisson The aim of this anniversary album is to examine the year 1917 from every angle, through a selective chronology and a detailed narrative, richly illustrated and annotated. Albums
November 2011 400 pages
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE BUISSON is the editor in chief of Figaro Magazine’s culture section. The books he has written include Mihailovic (Tempus) and Assassinés (Murdered) (Perrin 2013, Pocket 2014). He co-edited Les grands duels qui ont fait la France (The great duels that made France) (with A. Brezet,
1917 was a decisive year in the course of the First World War but also in world history, and not only from a geopolitical or military point of view with its great battles (Chemin des Dames, Caporetto) and major events (the failure of peace talks launched by AustriaHungary and the Pope, the collapse of Russia, Greece falling into the Allied camp, the first mutinies and strikes in the trenches, etc.). In all domains – scientific, cultural, intellectual and social – this year is comparable to 1789 or 1815 in magnitude, marking a farranging upheaval whose consequences are still felt today.
Perrin 2014) and Les derniers jours des reines (The queens’ last days) (with J. Sevilla, Perrin 2015). He participates every week in the RTL radio talk show On refait le monde (Remaking the world) and hosts the Historiquement (historically) Show on the Histoire channel.
PERRIN 2016
AROUND 100 ILLUSTRATIONS
42
1917 is the first year of the two revolutions in Russia, creating the first communist state and a global political movement that would mark the entire twentieth century, leaving in its wake tens of millions of victims. This is also the year when for the first time, the US intervened militarily in Europe, far from their homeland. Furthermore, 1917 is the year of the Balfour Declaration, which promised to create a state for the Jews on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, with unending impact on regional balance; the Corfu Declaration, providing for the (artificial) creation of Yugoslavia, a future disaster in European history that dragged on until recently; the emergence of the concept of “total war”, which fascist, Nazi and Communist regimes developed into industrialized massacre; the passing of the Espionage Act in the United States, still in force in 2016; the birth of the Dada artistic movement and the first appearance of the term surrealism, destined to change the history of twentieth century art.
Japan The Archipelago of Meaning
Michael Lucken
Challenging Roland Barthes and his famous book “The Empire of Signs”, a historical invitation to discover the real Japan. Albums
November 2016 230 pages
Professor of Japanese history, arts and art history at INALCO (French Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations) MICKAËL LUCKEN is the author of Les Japonais et la guerre 1935-1952 (The Japanese and the
Is Japan radically different? Its relationship to science, how it organizes power, how the world is represented there: all of these aspects might make us wonder. Yet numerous cultural references are common to both sides of the Eurasian continent. The primary aim of this book is to show that Japan is part of the same community as the western countries, a premise that goes against the conventional wisdom.
1935-1952 war)(Fayard,2013), for which he received the Thiers prize of the Académie française in 2014; 1945-Hiroshima : les images sources (1945-Hiroshima: the source images)(Editions Hermann, 2008) and Les Peintres japonais à l’épreuve de la guerre, 1935-1952
It’s not enough, however, to stress the similarity of values and social and political structures to erase the impression of strangeness that a first encounter with the country inspires. What gives us this sense of singularity? Using a series of images, the book answers this question, dismissing preconceived ideas to make it possible for us to see and understand the real Japan, far from the absolute otherness so often described.
(Japanese Painters in the crucible of war, from 1935 to 1952)(Les belles lettres,2005).
An innovative book, structured as a dialogue between text and iconography. A future classic.
AROUND 70 COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS
PERRIN 2016 43
The Century of Coronations Jean des Cars Jean des Cars gives a front-row seat at the grandest coronations, from Queen Victoria of England (1838) to King Felipe of Spain. Illustrated with exceptional images, the album takes us to the heart of the royal courts of Europe and the consecrations of their sovereigns, in all their pomp and circumstance. Albums
November 2016 350 pages
JEAN DES CARS is the historian of the great European dynasties and their most illustrious representatives. His works are widely translated, particularly in Central Europe. Among his greatest hits, all published by Perrin: Sissi ou la Fatalité (Sissi or Fate) (2005); La Saga des Romanov (The Saga of the Romanovs) (2008); La Saga des Habsbourg (The Saga of the Habsburgs)(2010); La Saga des Windsor (The Saga of the Wind-
The early years of the twenty-first century saw the arrival of a new generation of rulers on the thrones of several European monarchies. Their coronations were highly publicized, arousing curiosity and usually enthusiasm, not only from their subjects but from countless fans of royalty who avidly followed these often spectacular proceedings. The religious ceremony at the coronation, a rite dating back to the Old Testament, was the custom for centuries in European empires, kingdoms and principalities. This sacred ritual – before the coronation, which represents a political act symbolizing the inauguration of the monarch – has gradually been replaced by the taking of an oath before Parliament. This is sometimes preceded or followed by a religious celebration, mandatory in countries with a state religion of which the monarch is the head.
sors) (2011); La Saga des reines (The Saga of the Queens) (2012), La Saga des favorites (The Saga of the Favorites) (2013) and Le Sceptre et le Sang (Of Blood and Scepter) (2014).
PERRIN 2016
AROUND 100 COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS
44
This book, which boasts an exceptionally rich iconography, chronicles the evolution of coronations from Queen Victoria of England in 1838 to King Felipe VI of Spain in 2014. It is a dazzling account of the official enthronization of sixteen mainly European sovereigns and heads of constitutional monarchies: Nicolas II of Russia, Zita of Hungary, Rainier III of Monaco, Baudouin I of Belgium, Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom (whose coronation in 1953 had worldwide impact as the first to be televised), Reza Pahlavi of Iran, Margrethe II of Denmark, Carl XVI of Sweden, Juan Carlos of Spain, Beatrix of the Netherlands, Harald V of Norway, Henri of Luxembourg, Albert II of Monaco, WillemAlexander of the Netherlands and Philippe, King of the Belgians: Jean des Cars, with his customary flair, describes the moment they took power. This beautiful and unique album makes a magnificent contribution to our knowledge of these solemn and grandiose historical events.
Perrin is an imprint of Edi8 12, avenue d’Italie 75013 Paris Rights Manager Rebecca Byers rebecca.byers@edi8.fr