{"title":"Benjamin F Martin","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"france-and-the-apres-guerre-1918-1924-book-benjamin-f-martin-9780807125090","title":"France and the Apres Guerre, 1918-1924","description":"Although victorious in the First World War, the French of the Third Republic soon learned the devastating price of success. The loss of life and harsh conditions during and after the war shook survivors to the core. Benjamin Martin's examination of the aftershocks felt by the French and their world at war's end is a story masterfully told.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49595143520529,"sku":"GOR013258256","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50361407209745,"sku":"CIN0807125091G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0807125091.jpg?v=1751138499"},{"product_id":"france-in-1938-book-benjamin-f-martin-9780807130506","title":"France in 1938","description":"He concludes with a look back on the cost of decisions made in 1938 from the perspective of 1940. Exhibiting his trademark compelling narrative style, sense for unusual and telling detail, and vivid portraits of individual men and women, Martin brings remarkable texture to this depiction of a society and period. He recreates life in France during the year when terrors to come could already be imagined only too well.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50406360645905,"sku":"CIN0807130508G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51746664022289,"sku":"CIN0807130508VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0807130508.jpg?v=1750818260"},{"product_id":"france-in-1938-book-benjamin-f-martin-9780807131954","title":"France in 1938","description":"When Benjamin Martin's latest report from the front of French fallibility does not read like a tragedy, whose end is foreordained, it reads like a melodrama: sensational doings punctuated by catchy melodies like 'L'Internationale' and 'La Marseillaise.' In both cases it reads well.... French life in the run-up to World War II was a gangrenous decomposition, to be followed by still worse. The country's leaders found nary a pratfall that they could avoid. They chose a semblance of peace above honor and ended up with neither.... In spite of a masterful prologue, successful synthesis, elegant concision and lucid presentation (or perhaps thanks to them), the reader can't help sharing the nation's shames. A tribute to the historian's talent.\"\" -- Eugen Weber, Phi Beta Kappa Key Reporter.  At the beginning of 1938, containment of Nazi Germany by a coalition of eastern and western democracies without resorting to war was still a distinct possibility. By the end of 1938, however, Germany was much stronger, the western democracies stood alone, and war was all but certain. The primary cause for these developments, argues Benjamin F. Martin, was the foreign and domestic policies adopted by the French government and embraced by the French people. In a riveting account of the dark days leading up to France's defeat and occupation, Martin reveals a great and civilized nation committing a kind of suicide in 1938. Using movies, novels, newspapers, and sensational court cases, Martin weaves an absorbing tale of France's collective fear and melancholy during this troubled prewar period.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51255467311377,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51255467671825,"sku":"NIN9780807131954","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0807131954.jpg?v=1762597623"},{"product_id":"hypocrisy-of-justice-in-the-belle-epoque-book-benjamin-f-martin-9780807124949","title":"The Hypocrisy of Justice in the Belle Epoque","description":"The Dreyfus Affair of the 1890s and the violent controversies that surrounded it appeared to pass two very different judgments on the France of the Third Republic. The outcome o the trial- Captain Dreyfus convicted without guilt and the real traitor acquitted despite guilt- demonstrated without question the extraordinary hypocrisy of the military justice system. But the furor raised by Dreyfus' conviction and the agitation for his release suggested that the injustice of the courts' verdict was uncharacteristic of French society; that for France as a nation the rendering of justice was paramount, even at the expense of disgracing both the military and a conspiring government.  In The Hypocrisy of Justice in the Belle Epoque, Benjamin Martin examines the events of three sensational criminal cases to reveal that the willful mangling of justice that occurred in the Dreyfus trial was far from rare in the Third Republic France. He finds, in fact, that justice in the Belle Epoque was \"\"hypocritical in the extreme,\"\" with the outcome of trials easily tainted by the power and influence of politics, money, and illicit sex. At times, justice deviated so far from the ideal that its goal was not the strict application of the law or even the discovery of the truth, but rather the imposition of a system of rewards and punishments meted out in accordance with a capricious vision of social utility.  Martin begins with the case of Marguerite Steinheil, the wife of an artist of only middling talent. A strikingly beautiful woman, she presided over a famous salon and was the lover of influential politicians. When she was tried for the brutal murders of her husband and her mother, Marguerite defended herself with a flurry of extravagant stories and unlikely counter-accusations. Even so, she was found innocent of all charges, and the crimes were left unsolved.  The second trial considered is that of Thérése Humbert, a young woman who used an apparently innate talent for elaborate deception in rising from poverty to the upper reaches of Parisian society. With the aid of her husband and her brothers, Thérése created a series of specious lawsuits over an illusory American legacy. Then, playing on the greed of dozens of investors, she skillfully manipulated the French courts to perpetrate a fraud that would last for twenty years, yield millions, and make her salon one of the most dazzling in Europe until the day when the ruse was finally found out.  The third case is that of Henriette Caillaux, the wife of an important leader in the Radical party. She admitted shooting Gaston Calmette, the influential newspaper editor who had been carrying out a campaign of vilification against her husband. But when she was tried for the murder in 1914, Henriette was found innocent and allowed to go free.  The sensational trials of Marguerit Steinheil, Thérése Humbert, and Henriette Caillaux mirrored in many the stalemate society of the Belle Epoque itself. By examining the hypocrisy of justice in the Third Republic, Benjamin Martin uncovers the vast extent of that society's corruption, the amorality and sordidness that were cloaked only partially by the mantle of respectability.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52127217189137,"sku":"NLS9780807124949","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52740204462353,"sku":"NIN9780807124949","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780807124949.jpg?v=1762598000"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-benjamin-f-martin.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}