Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2024 -

Volpilhac-Auger (emer., Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon, France) has written a superb new biography of Montesquieu (1679-1765). She draws on Montesquieu's entire oeuvre, especially the new edition of his complete works, and is familiar with the correspondence surrounding Montesquieu's life and publishing career. She has also studied the editorial developments of each manuscript and is aware of the cultural and political conditions of each publication. That said, she does not lose sight of Montesquieu's key teachings in each literary work and shows how knowledge of the biography helps readers understand the meanings of these works. Volpilhac-Auger also comments authoritatively on the strengths and weaknesses of prior biographical interpretations. At 222 pages, the biography is almost too short, but its brevity has the advantage of making it accessible to a broad range of readers. A destination for the study of Montesquieu for general readers, seasoned researchers, and novices, this book should now be considered the standard biography of Montesquieu.Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.

Had she been male, Germaine de Stael (1766-1817) might have governed France. Born female, she shaped an entire continent. Such is the extraordinary destiny of the self-appointed stateswoman that Isbell (Univ. of Texas Rio Grande Valley) brings to life in this compilation of six new and eleven previously published essays (1994-2000). Isbell bases his arguments on extensive archival research and a decades-long evaluation of Stael's writings. He shows how she operated between and behind the scenes to spread her vision of a new Europe founded on freedom and stability rather than dictatorship and war. Denied direct political power, the daughter of Jacques Necker, Louis XVI's finance minister, pushed back against gender and nationalist boundaries and played a dazzling game of high-level strategy. Isbell presents her as an inspired author and unrelenting political actor who wrote, traveled, entertained, and stirred up trouble by persuading men to promote her ideas. Talleyrand, Wellington, Goethe, Byron, and the Tsar all fell under her influence. She helped topple Napoleon. This is the captivating portrait of a brilliant woman who, Isbell argues, deserves to be considered the first European. For more on Stael as political thinker, see Biancamaria Fontana's Germaine de Stael: A Political Portrait (2016).Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.