VINCENT DE PAUL, THE TRAILBLAZER opens a bright window into the turbulent world of a renowned saint who lived during a time of great unrest. Bernard Pujo details how politics, war, and Vincent's own charismatic personality served as essential elements in his construction of a vast and lasting web of charitable works. Pujo introduces readers not only to the fascinating life of Vincent, but also to the cultural, political, social, ecclesiastical, and economic life of France during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Pujo's rich portrait reveals that Vincent played an active and prominent part in shaping this period of French history. In his quest to minister to the needs of the poor, Vincent counseled and challenged some of the key figures in French politics. Vincent de Paul, the Trailblazer, describes Vincent's childhood, his education, his life as a young priest, his skills as an organizer and manager, and his commitment to serving the physical and spiritual needs of the poor. This authoritative biography is lively enough to interest general readers and detailed enough to appeal to scholars of French and church history.

Welcome to an America you've never seen. Where anyone can drop by the White House and visit the President between 10 a.m. and noon; where cowcatchers are bloodied daily on train tracks between New York and Boston; where spent bullets are strewn across Civil War battlefields, and Indians still roam Yosemite Valley; where pigs rut in the sand-and-clay streets of Washington, DC., and the weather-bleached skeletons of oxen and horses line the old mail roads across the West. For three hot summer months in 1869, Ernst Mendelssohn-Barthody, the nephew of famed composer Felix Mendelssohn, traveled by train across the United States accompanied by his older cousin. His letters back home to Prussia offer fascinating glimpses of a young, rapidly growing America. Unceasingly annoyed at the Americans' tendency to spit all the time, the Prussian aristocrats seemingly visited everyone and everywhere: meeting President Grant and Brigham Young; touring Niagara Falls, Mammoth Cave, the Redwoods, and Yosemite; taking in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Omaha, San Francisco, and the still war-ravaged city of Richmond; and crossing the continent by rail just two months after the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads had been joined at Promontory, Utah. Full of marvelous tales and insightful observations, Ernst Mendelssohn-Barthody's letters are a revealing window to a long-ago America.

Vincent de Paul, the Trailblazer opens a bright window into the turbulent world of a renowned saint who lived during a time of great unrest. Bernard Pujo details how politics, war, and Vincent's own charismatic personality served as essential elements in his construction of a vast and lasting web of charitable works. Pujo introduces readers not only to the fascinating life of Vincent de Paul (1581-1660), but also to the cultural, political, social, ecclesiastical, and economic life of France during the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Pujo's rich portrait reveals that Vincent played an active and prominent part in shaping this period of French history. In his quest to minister to the needs of the poor, Vincent counseled and challenged some of the key figures in French politics. Vincent de Paul, the Trailblazer describes Vincent's childhood, his education, his life as a young priest, his skills as an organizer and manager, and his commitment to serving the physical and spiritual needs of the poor. This authoritative biography is lively enough to interest general readers and detailed enough to appeal to scholars of French and church history.