The World of the Paris Cafa or Good Things

The World of the Paris Cafa(c): Sociability Among the French Working Class, 1789-1914

Author: W Scott Hain

"[Haine] invites the reader of The World of the Paris Café to step up to the serving counter of a nineteenth-century Parisian café to eavesdrop on the conversations and to observe the dynamics of this unique working-class establishment... These cafés were far more than places to eat and drink to the great majority of working-class Parisians, who also frequented such establishments seeking shelter from authorities, exchanging and developing and sometimes enacting their ideas."--Jack B. Ridley, History: Review of New Books

In The World of the Paris Café, W. Scott Haine investigates what the working-class café reveals about the formation of urban life in nineteenth-century France. Café society was not the product of a small elite of intellectuals and artists, he argues, but was instead the creation of a diverse and changing working population. Making unprecedented use of primary sources -- from marriage contracts to police and bankruptcy records -- Haine investigates the café in relation to work, family life, leisure, gender roles, and political activity. This rich and provocative study offers a bold reinterpretation of the social history of the working men and women of Paris.

"As its subtitle indicates, this book is as much about the emergence and flowering of working-class sociability as it is about the cafés that fostered this sociability, as much about milieu as it is about lieu... This study is both wide-ranging and well researched... At once serious and lively."--Elizabeth Ezra, Labour History Review

"Haine takes the café as an institution with its own history... But Haine's greatest contributionis the impressive archival work... The World of the Paris Café is a rich study to which dix-neuviémistes in their turn can raise a glass."--Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson, Nineteenth-Century French Studies

Elizabeth Ezra

This book is as much about the emergence and flowering of working-class sociability as it is about the cafés that fostered this sociability. -- Labour History Review

Booknews

In this investigation, the author (editor of the Social History of Alcohol Review) argues that cafe society was not the product of elite intellectuals and artists but was rather the creation of a diverse and changing working population. Topics include regulation and constraint, privacy in public, the social construction of the drinking experience, etiquette, and women and gender politics. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Interesting textbook: Data Communications and Networking or Distributed Systems

Good Things

Author: Jane Grigson

A celebration of fresh daily fare lovingly prepared. “Cooking something delicious is really much more satisfactory than painting pictures or making pottery. At least for most of us. Food has the tact to disappear, leaving room and opportunity for masterpieces to come. The mistakes don’t hang on the walls or stand on the shelves to reproach you forever.”—from Jane Grigson’s introduction. Originally published in 1971, Good Things is now available in a Bison Books edition for all those who appreciate good food and Jane Grigson’s witty and stylish way of writing about it. Including recipes for fish, meat, game, fresh fruits, vegetables, and a few splendid desserts, Good Things is a celebration of delicious everyday fare and its loving preparation.

Library Journal

This is one of those cookbooks that's much more than a collection of recipes, although there are plenty of them. The author insists that her work is "about enjoying food," which, she says, "is something to be thought about in the same way as any other aspect of human existence." Dishes using pigeons and rabbits might make some people cringe, but there's enough featuring more usual fare that makes this worth considering. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.