Edward Berenson

The Trial of Madame Caillaux

Edward Berenson

Edward Berenson recounts the trial of Henriette Caillaux, the wife of a powerful French cabinet minister, who murdered her husband's enemy <i>Le Figaro</i> editor Gaston Calmette, in March 1914, on the eve of World War I. In analyzing this momentous event, Berenson draws a fascinating portrait of Belle Epoque politics and culture.

Heroes of Empire

Edward Berenson

During the decades of empire (1870–1914), legendary heroes and their astonishing deeds of conquest gave imperialism a recognizable human face. Henry Morton Stanley, Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, Charles Gordon, Jean-Baptiste Marchand, and Hubert Lyautey all braved almost unimaginable dangers among «savage» people for their nation’s greater good. This vastly readable book, the first comparative history of colonial heroes in Britain and France, shows via unforgettable portraits the shift from public veneration of the peaceful conqueror to unbridled passion for the vanquishing hero. Edward Berenson argues that these five men transformed the imperial steeplechase of those years into a powerful «heroic moment.» He breaks new ground by linking the era’s «new imperialism» to its «new journalism»—the penny press—which furnished the public with larger-than-life figures who then embodied each nation’s imperial hopes and anxieties.