Bøger af Joan DeJean

"On December 12, 1719, a ship named La Mutine, or the Mutinous Woman, sailed from the French port of Le Havre, bound for the vast North American territory then referred to as 'the Mississippi.' La Mutine was loaded with goods that the fledgling French colony urgently required for its survival, basic foodstuffs such as flour and lard. But its principal commodity was a new kind of French export: women. The women who arrived in the New World from that frigate would go on to found Gulf dynasties, but their beginnings were less auspicious. Falsely accused of sex crimes--some for reporting rape, others because their families were obscenely poor and it was financially expedient to imprison them--these women were prisoners, shackled in the ship's hold. Of the 98 women who were shipped to the colony, only 44 survived. Despite the bleakness of these women's origins, they achieved unlikely triumph across the Atlantic. They managed to carve out a place for themselves in the colonies that would have been impossible in France, making advantageous marriages and accumulating property. Many were instrumental in the building of New Orleans, founded only a year before their arrival, and in settling Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. Today, hundreds of thousands of Americans can trace their lineage La Mutine. Drawing on an impressive range of sources to restore the voices of these women to the historical record ... [this work] introduces us to the Gulf's Founding Mothers--the 'mutinous women' of La Mutine"--

From the author of How Paris Became Paris, a sweeping history of high finance, the origins of high fashion, and a pair of star-crossed lovers in 18th-century France. Paris, 1719. The stock market is surging and the world's first millionaires are buying everything in sight. Against this backdrop, two families, the Magoulets and the Chevrots, rose to prominence only to plummet in the first stock market crash. One family built its name on the burgeoning financial industry, the other as master embroiderers for Queen Marie-Thérèse and her husband, King Louis XIV. Both patriarchs were ruthless money-mongers, determined to strike it rich by arranging marriages for their children.But in a Shakespearean twist, two of their children fell in love. To remain together, Louise Magoulet and Louis Chevrot fought their fathers' rage and abuse. A real-life heroine, Louise took on Magoulet, Chevrot, the police, an army regiment, and the French Indies Company to stay with the man she loved.Following these families from 1600 until the Revolution of 1789, Joan DeJean recreates the larger-than-life personalities of Versailles, where displaying wealth was a power game; the sordid cells of the Bastille; the Louisiana territory, where Frenchwomen were forcibly sent to marry colonists; and the legendary "Wall Street of Paris," Rue Quincampoix, a world of high finance uncannily similar to what we know now. The Queen's Embroiderer is both a story of star-crossed love in the most beautiful city in the world and a cautionary tale of greed and the dangerous lure of windfall profits. And every bit of it is true.

Synopsis coming soon.......