A Rulers Consort In Early Modern Germany

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A Ruler’s Consort in Early Modern Germany

Author : Judith P. Aikin
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317186842
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (171 download)

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Book Synopsis A Ruler’s Consort in Early Modern Germany by : Judith P. Aikin

Download or read book A Ruler’s Consort in Early Modern Germany written by Judith P. Aikin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The wives of rulers in early modern Europe did far more than provide heirs for their principalities and adornment for their courts. In this study, Judith Aikin examines the exceptionally well-documented actions of one such woman, Aemilia Juliana of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt (1637-1706), in order to expand our understanding of the role of ruler’s consort in the small principalities characteristic of Germany during this period. Aikin explores a wide range of writings by her subject, including informal letters to another woman, hundreds of devotional song texts, manuscript books both devotional and practical, and published pamphlets and books. Also important for this study are the plays, paintings, and musical works that adorned the court under Aemilia Juliana’s patronage; the books, poems, and sermons published in her honor; and the massive memorial volume printed and distributed soon after her death. This material, when coupled with the more scanty record in official documents, reveals the nature and scope of Aemilia Juliana’s role as full partner in the ruling couple. Among the most important findings based on this evidence are those related to Aemilia Juliana’s advocacy for women of all social classes through her authorship and publications, her support for the education of girls, her efforts to ameliorate the fear and suffering of pregnant and birthing women, and her contributions to female support networks. In examining the career of a consort whose various activities are so well documented, this study helps to fill in the blanks in the documentary record of numerous consorts across early modern Europe, and serves as a model for future research on other consorts at other courts.

Gender and Political Culture in Early Modern Europe, 1400-1800

Author : James Daybell
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134883986
Total Pages : 381 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (348 download)

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Book Synopsis Gender and Political Culture in Early Modern Europe, 1400-1800 by : James Daybell

Download or read book Gender and Political Culture in Early Modern Europe, 1400-1800 written by James Daybell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-01 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gender and Political Culture in Early Modern Europe investigates the gendered nature of political culture across early modern Europe by exploring the relationship between gender, power, and political authority and influence. This collection offers a rethinking of what constituted ‘politics’ and a reconsideration of how men and women operated as part of political culture. It demonstrates how underlying structures could enable or constrain political action, and how political power and influence could be exercised through social and cultural practices. The book is divided into four parts - diplomacy, gifts and the politics of exchange; socio-economic structures; gendered politics at court; and voting and political representations – each of which looks at a series of interrelated themes exploring the ways in which political culture is inflected by questions of gender. In addition to examples drawn from across Europe, including Austria, the Dutch Republic, the Italian States and Scandinavia, the volume also takes a transnational comparative approach, crossing national borders, while the concluding chapter, by Merry Wiesner-Hanks, offers a global perspective on the field and encourages comparative analysis both chronologically and geographically. As the first collection to draw together early modern gender and political culture, this book is the perfect starting point for students exploring this fascinating topic.

Devout Laywomen in the Early Modern World

Author : Alison Weber
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317151631
Total Pages : 390 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (171 download)

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Book Synopsis Devout Laywomen in the Early Modern World by : Alison Weber

Download or read book Devout Laywomen in the Early Modern World written by Alison Weber and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-10 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Devout laywomen raise a number of provocative questions about gender and religion in the early modern world. How did some groups or individuals evade the Tridentine legislation that required third order women to take solemn vows and observe active and passive enclosure? How did their attempts to exercise a female apostolate (albeit with varying degrees of success and assertiveness) destabilize hierarchies of class and gender? To the extent that their beliefs and practices diverged from approved doctrine and rituals, what insights can they provide into the tensions between official religion and lay religiosity? Addressing these and many other questions, Devout Laywomen in the Early Modern World reflects new directions in gender history, offering a more nuanced approach to the paradigm of woman as the prototypical "disciplined" subject of church-state power.

Men and Women Making Friends in Early Modern France

Author : Lewis C. Seifert
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317097513
Total Pages : 316 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis Men and Women Making Friends in Early Modern France by : Lewis C. Seifert

Download or read book Men and Women Making Friends in Early Modern France written by Lewis C. Seifert and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-03 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today the friendships that grab people’s imaginations are those that reach across inequalities of class and race. The friendships that seem to have exerted an analogous level of fascination in early modern France were those that defied the assumption, inherited from Aristotle and patristic sources, that friendships between men and women were impossible. Together, the essays in Men and Women Making Friends in Early Modern France tell the story of the declining intelligibility of classical models of (male) friendship and of the rising prominence of women as potential friends. The revival of Plato’s friendship texts in the sixteenth century challenged Aristotle’s rigid ideal of perfect friendship between men. In the seventeenth century, a new imperative of heterosociality opened a space for the cultivation of cross-gender friendships, while the spiritual friendships of the Catholic Reformation modeled relationships that transcended the gendered dynamics of galanterie. Men and Women Making Friends in Early Modern France argues that the imaginative experimentation in friendships between men and women was a distinctive feature of early modern French culture. The ten essays in this volume address friend-making as a process that is creative of self and responsive to changing social and political circumstances. Contributors reveal how men and women fashioned gendered selves, and also circumvented gender norms through concrete friendship practices. By showing that the benefits and the risks of friendship are magnified when gender roles and relations are unsettled, the essays in this volume highlight the relevance of early modern friend-making to friendship in the contemporary world.

Autobiographical Writing by Early Modern Hispanic Women

Author : Elizabeth Teresa Howe
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317176928
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (171 download)

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Book Synopsis Autobiographical Writing by Early Modern Hispanic Women by : Elizabeth Teresa Howe

Download or read book Autobiographical Writing by Early Modern Hispanic Women written by Elizabeth Teresa Howe and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women’s life writing in general has too often been ignored, dismissed, or relegated to a separate category in those few studies of the genre that include it. The present work addresses these issues and offers a countervailing argument that focuses on the contributions of women writers to the study of autobiography in Spanish during the early modern period. There are, indeed, examples of autobiographical writing by women in Spain and its New World empire, evident as early as the fourteenth-century Memorias penned by Doña Leonor López de Cordóba and continuing through the seventeenth-century Cartas of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. What sets these accounts apart, the author shows, are the variety of forms adopted by each woman to tell her life and the circumstances in which she adapts her narrative to satisfy the presence of male critics-whether ecclesiastic or political, actual or imagined-who would dismiss or even alter her life story. Analyzing how each of these women viewed her life and, conversely, how their contemporaries-both male and female-received and sometimes edited her account, Howe reveals the tension in the texts between telling a ’life’ and telling a ’lie’.

Tracing the Heroic Through Gender

Author : Carolin Hauck
Publisher : Ergon Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3956504038
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (565 download)

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Book Synopsis Tracing the Heroic Through Gender by : Carolin Hauck

Download or read book Tracing the Heroic Through Gender written by Carolin Hauck and published by Ergon Verlag. This book was released on 2018-10-09 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In nahezu allen Gesellschaften und Epochen ist das Heroische vielfach gegendert. Die soziale und kulturelle Produktion des Heroischen ist jedoch nicht ausschließlich mit dem Instrumentarium der Männlichkeitsforschung zu fassen, und ebenso wenig scheint es sinnvoll, Frauen bzw. Weiblichkeit in diesem Zusammenhang lediglich als Ausnahmen zu verstehen. Vielmehr gilt es, den relationalen Charakter ernst zu nehmen. Der vorliegende Band unternimmt erstmals den Versuch, Geschlecht als analytische Kategorie für die Heroismusforschung fruchtbar zu machen. Auf der Basis vielfältiger geisteswissenschaftlicher Ansätze dient diese Kategorie als 'Spurensucherin' (tracer) des Heroischen und als Instrument zur Untersuchung der historischen Bedingungen, medialen und performativen Erscheinungsformen sowie zeiträumlichen Konjunkturen und Transformationen. Diese gilt es, mit Hilfe der Kategorie Geschlecht und unter Nutzung der zugehörigen Eigenschaften neu auszumessen.

Gender and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Sweden

Author : Elise M. Dermineur
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317072901
Total Pages : 253 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis Gender and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Sweden by : Elise M. Dermineur

Download or read book Gender and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Sweden written by Elise M. Dermineur and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-14 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book retraces the life and experience of Princess Louisa Ulrika of Prussia (1720-1782), who became queen of Sweden, with a particular emphasis on her political role and activities. As crown princess (1744-1751), queen (1751-1771) and then queen dowager (1771-1782) of Sweden, Louisa Ulrika took an active role in political matters. From the moment she arrived in Sweden, and throughout her life, Louisa Ulrika worked tirelessly towards increasing the power of the monarchy. Described variously as fierce, proud, haughty, intelligent, self-conscious of her due royal prerogatives, filled with political ambitions, and accused by many of her contemporaries of wanting to restore absolutism, she never diverted from her objective to make the Swedish monarchy stronger, despite obstacles and adversities. As such, she embodied the perfect example of a female consort who was in turn a political agent, instrument and catalyst. More than just a biography, this book places Louisa Ulrika within the wider European context, thus shedding light on gender and politics in the early modern period.

Queen Hedwig Eleonora and the Arts

Author : Lisa Skogh
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351552511
Total Pages : 311 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (515 download)

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Book Synopsis Queen Hedwig Eleonora and the Arts by : Lisa Skogh

Download or read book Queen Hedwig Eleonora and the Arts written by Lisa Skogh and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As queen consort and dowager, Hedwig Eleonora (1636?1715) held a unique position in Sweden for more than half a century. As the dominant collector and patron of art and architecture in the realm, she left a strong mark on Swedish court culture. Her dynastic network among the Northern European courts was extensive, and this helped to make Sweden a major cultural center in Northern Europe in the later seventeenth century. This book represents the first major scholarly publication on the full range of Hedwig Eleonora?s endeavours, from the financing of her court to her place within a larger princely network, to her engagements with various cultural pursuits, to her public image. As the contributors show, despite her high profile, political position, and conspicuous patronage, Hedwig Eleonora experienced little of the animosity directed at many other foreign queens and regents, such as the Medici in France and Henrietta Maria in England. In this way, she provides a model for a different and more successful way of negotiating the difficulties of joining a foreign court; the analysis of her circumstances thus adds a substantial dimension to the study of early modern queenship. Presenting much new scholarship, this volume highlights one extremely significant early modern woman and her imprint on Northern European history, and fosters international awareness of the importance of early modern Scandinavia for European cultural history.

Royal Women and Dynastic Loyalty

Author : Caroline Dunn
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319758772
Total Pages : 207 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (197 download)

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Book Synopsis Royal Women and Dynastic Loyalty by : Caroline Dunn

Download or read book Royal Women and Dynastic Loyalty written by Caroline Dunn and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-05-21 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Royal women did much more to wield power besides marrying the king and producing the heir. Subverting the dichotomies of public/private and formal/informal that gender public authority as male and informal authority as female, this book examines royal women as agents of influence. With an expansive chronological and geographic scope—from ancient to early modern and covering Egypt, Great Britain, the Ottoman Empire, and Asia Minor—these essays trace patterns of influence often disguised by narrower studies of government studies and officials. Contributors highlight the theme of dynastic loyalty by focusing on the roles and actions of individual royal women, examining patterns within dynasties, and considering what factors generated loyalty and disloyalty to a dynasty or individual ruler. Contributors show that whether serving as the font of dynastic authority or playing informal roles of child-bearer, patron, or religious promoter, royal women have been central to the issue of dynastic loyalty throughout the ancient, medieval, and modern eras.

Aristocratic Power in the Spanish Monarchy

Author : Samuel Weber
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198872593
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (988 download)

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Book Synopsis Aristocratic Power in the Spanish Monarchy by : Samuel Weber

Download or read book Aristocratic Power in the Spanish Monarchy written by Samuel Weber and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-04-05 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Italy, the powerful Borromeo family of Milan have long been held up as a rare example of paternalist aristocrats who withstood the temptations of self-enrichment so many of their peers succumbed to during the period of Spanish rule. Aristocratic Power in the Spanish Monarchy, the first major study of the family in the seventeenth century, challenges this myth and explains how it came about. Based on research in the previously inaccessible Borromeo private papers, the volume details the Borromeo's increasing involvement with, and dependence on, the patronage of the kings of Spain. At the center of the analysis are the ways in which one family sought to rationalize and conceal this controversial relationship in the face of popular opposition to their methods of buying their way into political power. As their self-seeking behavior came under scrutiny, the clients of successive minister-favorites reinvented themselves as paternalist courtiers committed to delivering good governance for the subject populations under their rule. In doing so, the book offers new perspectives on broader questions: through a case study of three brothers from a representative noble family, it explains a major shift in aristocratic power in the seventeenth century, uncovering how dissimulation and subterfuge became central to the preservation of social privilege in an age of unprecedented threats to established power from below. Steeped in sociological and anthropological research on elite power, this captivating story from seventeenth-century Italy tells us much about the reproduction of social inequality in our own times.

Sex, Death, and Minuets

Author : David Yearsley
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022661784X
Total Pages : 361 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (266 download)

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Book Synopsis Sex, Death, and Minuets by : David Yearsley

Download or read book Sex, Death, and Minuets written by David Yearsley and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-07-11 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Insightful commentary on the Bach family’s musical life and . . . the culture in which the Bachs lived. . . . Important and fascinating . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice At one time a star in her own right as a singer, Anna Magdalena (1701–60) would go on to become, through her marriage to the older Johann Sebastian Bach, history’s most famous musical wife and mother. The two musical notebooks belonging to her continue to live on, beloved by millions of pianists young and old. Yet the pedagogical utility of this music—long associated with the sound of children practicing and mothers listening—has encouraged a rosy and one-sided view of Anna Magdalena as a model of German feminine domesticity. Sex, Death, and Minuets offers the first in-depth study of these notebooks, reanimating Anna Magdalena as a historical subject—at once pious and bawdy, spirited and tragic. In these pages, we follow Magdalena from young and flamboyant performer to bereft and impoverished widow. David Yearsley explores the notebooks’ entries against the backdrop of the social practices and concerns that women shared in eighteenth-century Lutheran Germany. What emerges is a humane portrait of a musician who embraced the sensuality of song and the uplift of the keyboard, a sometimes ribald wife and oft-bereaved mother who used her cherished musical notebooks for piety and play, humor and devotion—for living and for dying. “Fascinating.” —Laurence Dreyfus, University of Oxford “Yearsley’s account . . . will doubtless stand as the definitive account of the ‘Bachin’ and her notebooks for years to come.” —Bettina Varwig, University of Cambridge “A warm, insightful, and compelling portrait.” —Matthew Dirst, University of Houston

Gender and Diplomacy

Author : Roberta Anderson
Publisher : Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag
ISBN 13 : 3990128353
Total Pages : 499 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Gender and Diplomacy by : Roberta Anderson

Download or read book Gender and Diplomacy written by Roberta Anderson and published by Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag. This book was released on 2021-04-16 with total page 499 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book series "Diplomatica" of the Don Juan Archiv Wien researches cultural aspects of diplomacy and diplomatic history up to the nineteenth century. This second volume of the series features the proceedings of the Don Juan Archiv's symposium organized in March 2016 in cooperation with the University of Vienna and Stvdivm fÆsvlancm to discuss the topic of gender from a diplomatic-historical perspective, addressing questions of where women and men were positioned in the diplomacy of the early modern world. Gender might not always be the first topic that comes to mind when discussing international relations, but it has a considerable bearing on diplomatic issues. Scholars have not left this field of research unexplored, with a widening corpus of texts discussing modern diplomacy and gender. Women appear regularly in diplomatic contexts. As for the early modern world, ambassadorial positions were monopolized by men, yet women could and did perform diplomatic roles, both officially and unofficially. This is where the main focus of this volume lies. It features sixteen contributions in the following four "acts": Women as Diplomatic Actors, The Diplomacy of Queens, The Birth of the Ambassadress, and Stages for Male Diplomacy. Contributions are by Wolfram Aichinger | Roberta Anderson | Annalisa Biagianti | Osman Nihat Bişgin | John Condren | Camille Desenclos | Ekaterina Domnina | David García Cueto | María Concepción Gutiérrez Redondo | Armando Fabio Ivaldi | Rocío Martínez López | Laura Mesotten | Laura Oliván Santaliestra | Tracey A. Sowerby | Luis Tercero Casado | Pia Wallnig

Anna Maria van Schurman, 'The Star of Utrecht'

Author : Anne R. Larsen
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317180690
Total Pages : 397 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (171 download)

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Book Synopsis Anna Maria van Schurman, 'The Star of Utrecht' by : Anne R. Larsen

Download or read book Anna Maria van Schurman, 'The Star of Utrecht' written by Anne R. Larsen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-14 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dutch Golden Age scholar Anna Maria van Schurman was widely regarded throughout the seventeenth century as the most learned woman of her age. She was 'The Star of Utrecht','The Dutch Minerva','The Tenth Muse', 'a miracle of her sex', 'the incomparable Virgin', and 'the oracle of Utrecht'. As the first woman ever to attend a university, she was also the first to advocate, boldly, that women should be admitted into universities. A brilliant linguist, she mastered some fifteen languages. She was the first Dutch woman to seek publication of her correspondence. Her letters in several languages Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and French – to the intellectual men and women of her time reveal the breadth of her interests in theology, philosophy, medicine, literature, numismatics, painting, sculpture, embroidery, and instrumental music. This study addresses Van Schurman's transformative contribution to the seventeenth-century debate on women's education. It analyses, first, her educational philosophy; and, second, the transnational reception of her writings on women's education, particularly in France. Anne Larsen explores how, in advocating advanced learning for women, Van Schurman challenged the educational establishment of her day to allow women to study all the arts and the sciences. Her letters offer fascinating insights into the challenges that scholarly women faced in the early modern period when they sought to define themselves as intellectuals, writers, and thoughtful contributors to the social good.

A Magnificent Faith

Author : Bridget Heal
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198737572
Total Pages : 332 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (987 download)

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Book Synopsis A Magnificent Faith by : Bridget Heal

Download or read book A Magnificent Faith written by Bridget Heal and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive history of the Reformation origins and flourishing of Lutheran baroque; while the Protestant reform movements are generally associated with iconoclasm, this book studies art, religion, and politics to show that in Lutheran Germany a rich visual culture developed, despite theologians' ambivalent attitude towards images.

A Ruler's Consort in Early Modern Germany

Author : Judith Popovich Aikin
Publisher : Ashgate Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9781472423863
Total Pages : 250 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (238 download)

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Book Synopsis A Ruler's Consort in Early Modern Germany by : Judith Popovich Aikin

Download or read book A Ruler's Consort in Early Modern Germany written by Judith Popovich Aikin and published by Ashgate Publishing. This book was released on 2014 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In exploring the exceptionally well-documented activities of Aemilia Juliana of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt (1637-1706), this study confirms and expands on recent attempts to characterize the roles played by the wives of rulers in the many small principalities of early modern Germany. Judith Aikin analyzes a wide range of texts and cultural artifacts in order to disclose the scope of the contributions of this ruler's consort as full partner in the ruling couple.

Operas in German

Author : Margaret Ross Griffel
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1442247975
Total Pages : 1046 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (422 download)

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Book Synopsis Operas in German by : Margaret Ross Griffel

Download or read book Operas in German written by Margaret Ross Griffel and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-01-23 with total page 1046 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With nearly three thousand new entries, the revised edition of Operas in German: A Dictionary is the most current encyclopedic treatment of operas written specifically to a German text from the seventeenth century through 2016. Musicologist Margaret Ross Griffel details the operas’ composers, scores, librettos, first performances, and bibliographic sources. Four appendixes then list composers, librettists, authors whose works inspired or were adapted for the opera librettos, and a chronological listing of the entries in the A–Z section. The bibliography details other dictionaries and encyclopedias, performance studies, collections of plot summaries, general studies on operas, sources on locales where opera premieres took place, works on the history of operas in German, and selective volumes on individual opera composers, librettists, producers, directors, and designers. Finally, two indexes list the main characters in each opera and the names of singers, conductors, producers, composers, directors, choreographers, and arrangers. The revised edition of Operas in German provides opera historians, musicologists, performers, and opera lovers with an invaluable resource for continued study and enjoyment. As the most current encyclopedic collection of German opera from the seventeenth century through the twenty-first, Operas in German is an invaluable resource for opera historians, musicologists, performers, and opera lovers.

Empress Dowager Cixi

Author : Jung Chang
Publisher : Random House Canada
ISBN 13 : 0307363120
Total Pages : 431 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (73 download)

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Book Synopsis Empress Dowager Cixi by : Jung Chang

Download or read book Empress Dowager Cixi written by Jung Chang and published by Random House Canada. This book was released on 2013-10-29 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the beloved, internationally bestselling author of Wild Swans, and co-author of the bestselling Mao: The Unknown Story, the dramatic, epic biography of the unusual woman who ruled China for 50 years, from concubine to Empress, overturning centuries of traditions and formalities to bring China into the modern world. A woman, an Empress of immense wealth who was largely a prisoner within the compound walls of her palaces, a mother, a ruthless enemy, and a brilliant strategist: Chang makes a compelling case that Cixi was one of the most formidable and enlightened rulers of any nation. Cixi led an intense and singular life. Chosen at the age of 12 to be a concubine by the Emperor Xianfeng, she gave birth to his only male heir who at four was designated Emperor when his father died in 1861. In a brilliant move, the young woman enlisted the help of the Emperor's widow and the two women orchestrated a coup that ousted the regents and made Cixi sole Regent. Untrained and untaught, the two studied history and politics together, ruling the huge nation from behind a curtain. When her boy died, Cixi designated a young nephew as Emperor, continuing her reign till her death in 1908. Chang gives us a complex, riveting portrait of Cixi through a reign as long as that of her fellow Empress, Victoria, whom she longed to meet: her ruthlessness in fighting off rivals; her curiosity to learn; her reliance on Westerners who she placed in key positions; and her sensitivity and desire to preserve the distinctiveness of China's past while overturning traditions (she, as Chang reveals--not Mao, as he claimed--banned footbinding) and exposing its culture to western ideas and technology.