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ladyeremite 's review for:
What a pleasure to have a gripping, but still scholarly, history that covers the main themes of the Napoleonic era through July Monarchy in France (legitimism vs liberalism, aristocratic"honor" vs inchoate capitalism, assimilation and the emergence of modern anti-semitism, separate spheres and its contradictions, the legacy of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars etc.) all in a story featuring miraculous babies, assassination, rebellion, betrayal, and secret love affairs! Samuels did a great job of capturing so much of what draws me to this comparatively neglected period of French history - that weird co-existence of the old regime and the new, which makes formulating coherent narratives of linear development difficult but also more interesting.