{"product_id":"in-the-sun-kings-cosmos-comets-and-the-cultural-imagination-of-seventeenth-century-france-hardcover","title":"In the Sun King's Cosmos: Comets and the Cultural Imagination of Seventeenth-Century France - Hardcover","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eClaire Goldstein\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eOffering a new history of a formative cultural and political era through the cosmic phenomena that captured the public's imagination\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e In the winters of 1664-65 and 1680-81, the French public was galvanized by two bright comets whose elliptical orbits could not be mapped with contemporary geometry and that thus seemed to appear in random and unpredictable locations. Bookending the period during which Louis XIV's sun king mythology was created, these comets defied the heliocentric order to which French politics and culture aspired. As Claire Goldstein demonstrates, literary texts, cultural institutions, and architecture inspired by comets offer a different perspective on the relationship between sensory experience, ideology, and artistic form\u003ci\u003e.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eIn the Sun King's Cosmos: Comets and the Cultural \u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eImagination of Seventeenth-Century France\u003c\/i\u003e presents an alternative view of a formative era in cultural and political history, when distinctly modern forms of power and control were established through a regime of the spectacular. Goldstein shows how comets allow us to see the seventeenth century in ways that complicate the narrative of a race toward rationalization, classicism, and modernity, indexing instead a messy period in which the spectacular was sometimes also inscrutable. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCLAIRE GOLDSTEIN \u003c\/b\u003eis a professor of French at the University of California, Davis. She is the author of \u003ci\u003eVaux and Versailles: The Appropriations, Erasures, and Accidents That Made Modern France\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 296\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e February 15, 2025\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51773197123872,"sku":"9780810148123","price":99.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/ef3091abfaa7240d51bb86c2503c5120.webp?v=1780421840","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/in-the-sun-kings-cosmos-comets-and-the-cultural-imagination-of-seventeenth-century-france-hardcover","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}