Paris under the Occupation, in color.
posted on Jul 12, 2008 - View this thread

Agence Eureka is a French language image-blog with hundreds or even thousands of scanned illustrations, mostly from mid-20th century French schoolbooks, educational material, magazines, and ephemera. The current front page is slightly NSFW. Some of the categories include anatomy 1 & 2 (mildly NSFW); chocolate wrappers/trading cards; bricolage; decoupage (cut-outs); math education; playing cards; books and magazines; cars; cinema; orientalisme; sport; mild pin-ups; and many others (scroll all the way down the right to see the tags).
posted on Dec 4, 2007 - View this thread

Lessons from Past Western Incursions in the Middle East. A speech by Juan Cole at the New America Foundation in which he discusses his new book, Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East, and the relevance and lessons of Napoleon's expedition in Egypt to the current American occupation of Iraq. A shorter version, covering many of the same points, is in this article: Pitching the Imperial Republic.
posted on Aug 26, 2007 - View this thread

Aerial Archaeology in Northern France
posted on Aug 17, 2007 - View this thread

Super French Web Sites.
posted on Jun 2, 2007 - View this thread

Memoirs of Phillipe de Commynes. A first-hand account of the 15th-century military and diplomatic struggle between Louis XI of France, a master of intrigue, and his most powerful rival, Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. "At that time the subjects of the house of Burgundy were very rich because of the long peace which they had enjoyed and the great moderation of the prince under whom they lived, who taxed his subjects little. It seems to me that then his territories could well have been described as the Promised Land, more so than any others on earth. They were overflowing with wealth and they had a peace which they have not since experienced during the last twenty-three years. ... But today I do not know in this world a people so desolate, and I fear that the sins of the time of their prosperity have brought them their present adversity; most of all because they did not recognize that all these favours came from God who distributes them as it pleases him."
posted on Jan 9, 2007 - View this thread

Photos of Paris during the 1910 flood. More. Yet more.
posted on Jan 5, 2007 - View this thread

Bourbonnais. No, not Bourbonnais, IL, but Bourbonnais, a historic province in France that flourished during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. In this area there are hundreds of churches built in the Romanesque style.

In 2004 Stephen Murray, an art history professor, and his students recieved a $500,000 grant to document, process, and archive data from the churches into a digital database, all available online.
posted on Dec 5, 2006 - View this thread

90 years ago today, whistles blew around the river Somme in France as British troops prepared for an attack on German trenches. By the end of the day they had suffered 57,470 casualties. By the battle's end in November, there were over 600,000 Allied casualties, with perhaps the same number of German casualties. The Imperial War Museum has launched an online exhibition, where you can find out more about how the battle was planned, personal stories of those involved, and myths about the attack. Elsewhere you can find copies of Army reports on the first day, look at film of the attack, diaries and letters home from the troops, go on tours of the trenches, listen to contemporary songs and music inspired by the battle, and see some more modern responses.
posted on Jul 1, 2006 - View this thread

And when an American mouths off about French military history, he's not just being ignorant, he's being ungrateful. The War Nerd provides a little historical perspective. [via monkeyfilter]
posted on Aug 22, 2004 - View this thread

Images of medieval architecture. A great site put together by Alison Stones, Professor of History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh. There are two large gazetteers, one for Britain, and one for France. Besides photos, there are many plans, sketches and elevation drawings, which help to give an idea of the sheer scale of gothic cathedrals such as the cathedral of Saint-Étienne at Bourges (scroll down for the human figures at the bottom).
posted on Jun 29, 2003 - View this thread

Those French have been at it for a very long time.
posted on Jul 5, 2001 - View this thread

Mass grave of 24 World War I dead discovered in France. There's no way history is boring. Especially to a Belgian or French farmer.
posted on Jun 20, 2001 - View this thread

Tapez 3615 Pour Fair Votre Resérvation sur Minitél... Long Ago, before the Web, there was France's Minitel teletext. The French consider it a succès; I'm not so sure, since a Minitel terminal was never demonstrably more useful than than a touchtone phone in North America. In any case, Minitel may offer some lessons as to what type of Web commerce are and are not commercially viable.
posted on Jun 2, 2001 - View this thread