{"product_id":"the-glory-of-the-empire-isbn-9781590179659","title":"The Glory of the Empire","description":"\u003ci\u003eThe Glory of the Empire\u003c\/i\u003e is the rich and absorbing history of an extraordinary empire, at one point a rival to Rome. Rulers such as Basil the Great of Onessa, who founded the Empire but whose treacherous ways made him a byword for infamy, and the romantic Alexis the bastard, who dallied in the fleshpots of Egypt, studied Taoism and Buddhism, returned to save the Empire from civil war, and then retired “to learn to die,” come alive in \u003ci\u003eThe Glory of the Empire\u003c\/i\u003e, along with generals, politicians, prophets, scoundrels, and others. Jean d’Ormesson also goes into the daily life of the Empire, its popular customs, and its contribution to the arts and the sciences, which, as he demonstrates, exercised an influence on the world as a whole, from the East to the West, and whose repercussions are still felt today. But it is all fiction, a thought experiment worthy of Jorge Luis Borges, and in the end \u003ci\u003eThe Glory of the Empire\u003c\/i\u003e emerges as a great shimmering mirage, filling us with wonder even as it makes us wonder at the fugitive nature of power and the meaning of history itself.“D'Ormesson provides witty fictional documentation, parodies opinions of historians and literati (there is a one-line parody of Walt Whitman), borrows outrageously and has caught brilliantly the 'Where is Nineveh now?' tone of sunset reflection. A tour de force.”—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “No epic—sung, printed, or filmed—equals the sweeping turbulence of the 1,000-year history of the Empire...D’Ormesson’s satire undermines important assumptions of the reigning ideology: that history is objective; narratives, neutral; that language transmits pre-existing truth...[The novel] is pure pleasure...it will absorb you, puzzle you, make you laugh...So powerful is the narrative that the passive reader risks overlooking much of the satire; the active reader, however, can find materials for a debunking operation the likes of which d’Ormesson himself perhaps never imagined.”—William Beauchamp, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eJean D’Ormesson\u003c\/b\u003e (1925-2017) was born in Paris and attended  the École normale supérieure, where he studied literature, history, and  philosophy. His first novel, \u003ci\u003eL’amour est un plaisir\u003c\/i\u003e, was published in 1956, and in 1971 \u003ci\u003eThe Glory of the Empire\u003c\/i\u003e won the Grand Prize for fiction from the Académie française. He has served as chairman of the board of the newspaper \u003ci\u003eLe Figaro\u003c\/i\u003e and secretary-general and president of the International Council for  Philosophy and Humanistic Studies at UNESCO. The recipient of numerous  distinctions, he was elected to the Académie française in 1973 and was  presented the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor in 2014. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBarbara Bray\u003c\/b\u003e (1924–2010) was a translator of twentieth-century French literature into  English. She was an early champion of Marguerite Duras and Samuel  Beckett, and also translated the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Anouilh,  and Alain Robbe-Grillet. Her translations of \u003ci\u003eThe Bridge of Beyond\u003c\/i\u003e by Simone Schwarz-Bart, \u003ci\u003eMonsieur Proust\u003c\/i\u003e by Céleste Albaret, and \u003ci\u003ePrisoner of Love\u003c\/i\u003e by Jean Genet are available as NYRB Classics. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eDaniel Mendelsohn\u003c\/b\u003e was born in 1960 and studied Classics at the University of Virginia and  at Princeton. His essays and reviews appear regularly in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e. His books include \u003ci\u003eThe Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million\u003c\/i\u003e; a memoir, \u003ci\u003eThe Elusive Embrace\u003c\/i\u003e; and two collections of critical essays, including \u003ci\u003eWaiting for the Barbarians: Essays from the Classics to Pop Culture\u003c\/i\u003e, published by New York Review Books. He teaches literature at Bard College.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303257624805,"sku":"NP9781590179659","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781590179659.jpg?v=1767739559","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-glory-of-the-empire-isbn-9781590179659","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}