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THE LITERARY DISCOVERY OF THE CENTURY

In 1863 Jules Verne, famed author of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days, wrote a novel that his literary agent deemed too farfetched to be published. More than one hundred years later, his great-grandson found the handwritten, never-before published manuscript in a safe. That manuscript was Paris in the Twentieth Century, an astonishingly prophetic view into the future by one of the most renowned science fiction writers of our time . . . ... Read more

Customer Reviews (27)

Review of Paris in the Twentieth Century
I have so much I want to talk about when it comes to this book I don't even know where to begin.

Paris in the Twentieth Century is, like all Jules Verne's books, a very detailed, scientific story - technology and advancements take first place, with the story coming second. Don't get me wrong though, I love reading Verne's books - but they are dry reading at times.The overflow of information, not only on technological advancements, but Parisian names and places set my head spinning at times.But, like I do with all of his books, I just let the information flow through and - for the sake of my sanity - do not worry about keeping a grasp on it.

Paris in the Twentieth Century is the story of Michele, a teenage boy who wishes to be a poet.Jules Verne depicts 1960 Paris as a place where art has fallen in favor of science and math.The classics are lost, poets are shunned, musicians are encouraged to write pieces that sound as if you are sitting on a piano keyboard (fascinating in itself to me because.. have your heard some of these modern compositions today?).Michele is a long-haired hippy - he struggles living in a home with no imagination (bankers) and longs for a girl he cannot hope to support as a starving artist.

The real marvel of this book is Verne's description of what was to come in the 20th Century.He wrote this book in 1963 and his publisher rejected it as being too radical.His great-grandson found the book in the 90's and submitted it to be published.Reading the book now, as a historical novel, it's a wonder to me that he stopped at 1960 because what he was describing could easily apply to today.

Verne speaks of machines that transmit via telephony entire facsimile's of pages.He speaks of huge department stores, streets lit up as brightly as the son, hotels that can lodge thousands of people.He speaks of train systems prominent in cities today, he envisioned The Eiffel Tower, only as a brightly light lighthouse standing high in Paris (the tower was built 1887 - 1889 - more than twenty years after Verne wrote this book).He even describes a large ledger detailing the banks calculations and sums that stands high and broadcasts them to the bank.

But Verne does not stop at technology.He describes our apathy toward one another, our rush to get things done instead of slowing down to enjoy life. He talks about what little appreciation we have for the wonders around us and tells a tragic story of what life will be like should we lose all that gives us pleasure, art, music, poetry included in these losses.

This book was not a huge investment of time.It's barely 200 pages long.The chapters are short and manageable.Even if you are not a science fiction fan, I encourage you to check it out and to hopefully experience the feeling of wonder I felt as I read about things predicted by a man who must have been a real thrill to speak to.

The Original Editor Had It Right
I don't know which book previous reviewers read (and gave it 4 stars) but this novel is truly awful!!! The original editor buried it and there it should have stayed. Unfortunately, someone has decided to capitalise on Jules Vernes reputation to make a fast buck. Representation of this poor work casts neither in a good light.

Not much positive to say about it other than the fact he got a few predictions right. However, the literary construction around these ideas was very poor. Thankfully a short read.

Intriguing, but flawed narrative
While this work is intriguing in its predictions that have or have not been proven, as an actual story it's weak. Neither the plot nor the characterization is compelling, and it stands as a work that few would read if Verne's name wasn't attached to it. Recommended for a completionist scifi reader who wants to check out an early dystopian reflection, but there are a lot of better books available.

Jules Verne - Visionary Prophet
If you are a Jules Verne fan, this recently (1989) discovered novel, written at the beginning of Verne's career (1863), rejected by his publisher, and found in a locked safe by his great-grandson, is a must read.

Although Verne's later works (Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in Eighty Days) contain numerous examples of his uncanny knack for prediction, such as modern space, air, and sea travel in rockets, airplanes, and submarines, no other work of his combines all these elements along with a prophetic description of modern industrial, capitalist society, and its attendant anomie and atomisation of the individual.

Set nearly one hundred years in the future from the date of its writing, the protagonist, 16-year old Michel Dufrenoy, has recently graduated with honors from a Parisian college with a major in classic literature in a world where classic art and literature have been forgotten, and only scientists, engineers, and accountants are valued and can find work.

In this remarkably prescient novel, Verne accurately and in amazing detail foresees a modern, technologically advanced Paris of the 1960's. Its citizens ride in gasoline powered automobiles and pneumatic subways, live and work in modern apartment buildings and skyscrapers, and use electric lights, fax machines, air conditioning, the Internet, television, and calculators. Verne mentions a structure remarkably similar to the Eiffel Tower fourteen years before its construction and, in what must be his most eerily precise prediction, a geometric centerpiece for the courtyard of the Louvre Museum, which would not be added until 1989.

The novel, written when Verne was 35, parallels his own early career. Dufrenoy is obviously based upon Verne himself, and represents Verne's own fears and frustrations as a young writer, when he abandoned the path his father had set for him as a lawyer and took up writing and theater instead.

Perhaps the best aspect of the work is Verne's description of a modern, technologically advanced, materially prosperous and peaceful society plagued by shallow relationships between individuals, trashy and lowbrow mass entertainment, and the marginalization of those whom society has deemed, due to their more romantic and bohemian notions and tastes, unfit for participation in the larger culture.

Interesting, but Unexpected
Jules Verne's Paris in the Twentieth Century, hailed and widely publicized as "The Lost Novel" when it was discovered in 1989 and published in English in 1994, is valuable to the history of science fiction literature, but is not necessarily what one would expect from a Jules Verne novel.This particular text was written in 1863 and submitted for publication following the success of Verne's first published story, Five Weeks in a Balloon.His publisher, Pierre-Jules Hetzel, rejected the novel on the basis that it presented such a pessimistic view of the future that it would only harm the author's growing reputation as the writer of exciting adventure stories.

Paris in the Twentieth Century is certainly dystopic in nature.It presents a future world replete with technology, but devoid of culture.In fact, artists, writers, musicians, and other scholars as we know them today have no place in this highly structured, government controlled society.Our protagonist, the teenaged Michel Dufrenoy, fits into this category.He worships at the altar of the great French writers and philosophers of old, but the names of his gods are virtually unknown and entirely unimportant in the world of the future.Unfortunately, the character of Michel remains relatively undeveloped throughout the text: from his introduction, through his continued disillusionment, and finally his melodramatic "death" in a cemetery, he grows little and entertains less.The plot is also unlike the plots of other Verne works; this book does not have much in the way of action, and doesn't present the sort of adventurous journey that we have come to expect from Verne through his other works, like Journey to the Center of the Earth or Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

However, the text is perhaps unintentionally made more interesting through the accuracy of Verne's predictions of future technology.Among other things, Verne describes gasoline-powered automobiles, a public metro system with elevated trains, computer-like devices, global communication networks similar to the Internet, military weapons, public electric lighting, commercial advertising, global financial markets, fax machines . . . the list goes on and on, even including predictions of modern electronic music.While there are certainly some elements that miss the mark (pianos that convert to both dining tables and commodes?), Verne produces a vision of the future that, from the modern perspective, is largely believable.Overall, Paris in the Twentieth Century is worth a read, not only for Verne fans and science fiction buffs, but also for anyone who is interested in the development of the modern novel and the portrayal of the artist repressed by his society. ... Read more

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Together With Papers On The Medal: Its Origin And Symbolism By George N. Olcott And The Lincoln Centennial Commemoration By Richard Lloyd Jones And Certain Characteristic Utterances Of Abraham Lincoln. ... Read more

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The definitive account of a bizarre chapter in national politics, told with a historian's breadth of knowledge by a journalist who was there.

Nixon and Agnew were an odd couple whose political love affair disintegrated over five years into a calamitous denouement. Agnew's divisive rhetoric skyrocketed his popularity, but he grew weary of exclusion from the Nixon inner circle. Nixon, concluding that Agnew was not the man to succeed him, conspired to dump him in 1972 and later to remove him from the line of presidential succession. But before Nixon's presidency collapsed in Watergate, a tawdry scandal of payoffs to Agnew in the White House accomplished the job.

Jules Witcover, a leading political reporter of that period, wrote political biographies of both men and coauthored the acclaimed account of the Agnew resignation, A Heartbeat Away. Now, with three decades ofperspective, a trove of new material including Nixon's White House tapes and interviews with close Nixon-Agnew associates, Witcover has written a captivating narrative that reveals how the foibles, pettiness and weaknesses of each man destroyed that marriage, and ultimately their careers. Very Strange Bedfellows' revealing look into the flawed and fascinating Nixon presidency will be catnip to anyone interested in American politics and American history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Great information but with a liberal slant
As one who has read many books on the Nixon presidency, I have never come across anything that really explained the reasons behind the strange Nixon/Agnew relationship, or why Agnew was picked in the first place.Because Nixon held such pride in his role as Vice President under Eisenhower (see Six Crises) I always thought it strange that he did not value the position in his own Administration.This book does a great job of telling me everything I wanted to know, with great insight on Agnew and the Nixon/Connally relationship that was such a factor.
However, it would have been nice to read such a book from someone more objective.The author cannot make it out of the Foreward without a little Bush/Cheney bashing.His liberal bias is obvious, as is his personal hatred of Nixon, and he can't help himself in letting it show several times in the book.

Well Written Hatchet Job
Jules Witcover is an excellent writer who, unfortunately, sometimes lets his political and philosphical beliefs get in the way.There are various instances in this book where he is just as intent on criticizing conservatives and the Republican Party as criticizing the two main characters -- Nixon and Agnew.

It is obvious that he is and was no fan of President Nixon.In some respect, despite his dislike for Agnew there are places in the book where it seemed Witcover was sympathetic with him.One senses that Agnew, for all his flaws, wanted to be an important member of the Nixon Administration while Nixon and his staff grew to dislike him and tried to relegate him to obscurity.It is no secret that Nixon became enamored with John Connally and would have preferred Connally as his successor.Witcover sees a tormented vice president who wanted to be so much more than what the president would let him be.And then, skeletons came out of the closet to doom the vice president.

Two things stood out that keeps me from rating this higher.First, if Witcover would have left his biases out of the book -- or been more subtle with his biases -- it would have given his account more credibility.As it is, his little digs at not just Nixon and Agnew but the Republican Party and conservatives in general, gives this book more of a flavor of a hatchet job.

Second, and this may seem trivial, but there are no pictures.Other than the cover jacket there are none.Pictures really add a lot to a historical book such as this.I grew up in that era and remember well how the main characters -- Nixon, Agnew, Connally, Haldeman, Erlichman, etc -- looked.But to younger people, the failure to match a face with the people being written about detracts from the book.There could have been pictures of Nixon in the 1968 campaign, the 1968 GOP convention, Nixon and Agnew campaigning in both 1968 and 1972, Agnew giving speeches during the first administration, the investigators and culprits who destroyed Agnew in 1973, Agnew leaving the federal court in Baltimore as a former vice president, both men in their later years, etc.There were so many possibilities of where pictures would have added so much to this book.But there were none.

The Morning After
Recently I read an article by Ben Stein about the sudden outpouring of books about Richard Nixon and his presidency.For the most part Stein focuses on Robert Dallek's excellent tome "Nixon and Kissinger" as well as Margaret MacMillan's somewhat tedious but thorough work, "Nixon and Mao." He referenced this book in passing and referred to Mr. Witcover as, "a third rate journalist."I beg to differ.

In examining the relationship between President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew, Witcover carefully examines one of the most overlooked aspects of his presidency.Witcover clearly draws on research he had done for previous books about Nixon and Agnew, but manages to distinguish this book from other Nixon books.

In the grand scheme of the Nixon presidency, Spiro Agnew is typically an afterthought as the focus usually falls on Watergate, Kissinger, the Vietnam War, the SALT agreement and opening relations with communist China.The book quickly makes clear that Agnew played a minor role, if any, in policy decisions.Witcover is at his best when he explores issues such as Nixon's own self-loathing and paranoia, which clearly fed into his decision to put Agnew on the '68 ticket. Mr. Whitcover also paints an interesting picture of Agnew's ability to offend an entire room in less than three sentences.And while he may have been far more elegant than George W. Bush in his ability to articiulate his ideas, it is also clear nearly ALL of his memorable soundbites (such as his reference to the press as "nattering nabobs of negativism")to William Safire and Pat Buchanan. Witcover's analysis and research makes also makes plain the irony of Nixon's treatment of Agnew, considering Nixon's own gripes about his limited role as Ike's VP.

But perhaps the most interesting and unique aspect of this book is the backstory of Nixon's relationship with John Connelly, and his desire to unite with Connelly (then still a Democrat) and start a third party that would shake up American politics as we know it.Nixon's desire to push Agnew off the 72 ticket and replace him with Connelly is well examined and documented by Mr. Witcover, who paints Connelly as one of the few people in Washington that Nixon was in awe of.

We all know how it ended, with Agnew's resignation, Ford's ascension to the VP-slot, and Nixon's own downfall.But if you are interested in a fresh take on an often forgotten chapter of the Nixon presidency, you can't do much better than this book.

Deja Vu, Jules?
It seems that Mr. Whitcover has covered this before in two previous books.As a previous reviewer said, this is a hatchet job on two of the most misunderstood people to hold the two highest offices in the United States.Yes, they both certainly had their faults and deserved their eventual fates, but there was a lot more to the both of them and Whitcover misses it all.He just simply re hashes the obvious faults and does no other searching.Agnew for one is in dire need of a serious study of his Vice Presidency.

Hatchet Job
Witcover has made a career of hate filled attacks on RN. This book is a cut and paste job with little new to offer. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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This Book Is In French. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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Les achats comprennent une adhésion à l'essai gratuite au club de livres de l'éditeur, dans lequel vous pouvez choisir parmi plus d'un million d'ouvrages, sans frais. Le livre consiste d'articles Wikipedia sur : Foca, Angénieux, Kinoptik, Alsaphot, Cokin, Simda, Prestinox, Jules Richard, Rohen, Gitzo. Non illustré. Mises à jour gratuites en ligne. Extrait : Foca est une marque française d'appareils photographiques. La fabrication a démarré immédiatement après la Seconde Guerre mondiale et s'est achevée au milieu des années 1960. C'est Armand de Gramont, fondateur de l'Institut d'optique théorique et appliquée, qui est à l'origine de la marque. En 1919, il crée la société OPL (Optique et Précision de Levallois) spécialisée au départ dans la fabrication d'appareils optiques pour l'armée, dont des collimateurs, des télémètres et, plus anecdotiquement, des "mitrailleuses photographiques" embarquées. En 1938, sous la pression des industriels français de la photographie, le gouvernement contingente l'importation des appareils allemands. Rapidement, Armand de Gramont a l'idée de fabriquer des appareils français de format 135 équivalents aux Leica. Le projet est lancé en 1938. La guerre interrompt le processus industriel (l'usine fournit du matériel à l'armée allemande) mais la recherche se poursuit et un premier modèle, le Foca deux étoiles (ou PF2), est présenté en 1945. C'est un appareil télémétrique à objectif amovible comportant entre autres innovations un télémètre très clair de couleur jaune intégré au viseur. Malgré son prix élevé (27 000 francs), c'est un succès commercial. En 1947, la fabrication en série est transférée à Châteaudun. Différents modèles et objectifs seront produits. Tous les composants optiques et mécaniques seront conçus et fabriqués en interne à l'exception des obturateurs centraux. Au plus fort de son activité, l'usine de Châteaudun emploiera plus de 700 personnes et produira jusqu'à 3 000 appareils et ob...http://booksllc.net/?l=fr ... Read more