{"product_id":"paris-concealed-masks-in-the-city-of-light-by-james-h-johnson","title":"Paris Concealed: Masks in the City of Light By James H. Johnson","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"a-expander-content a-expander-partial-collapse-content a-expander-content-expanded\" data-expanded=\"true\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eA comprehensive history of masks in France from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMasks can conceal, disguise, or protect. They can guard status, inspire delight, or spread fear. They can also betray trust through insincerity, deceit, and hypocrisy. In \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eParis Concealed\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, historian James H. Johnson offers a sweeping history of masks both visible and unseen from the time of Louis XIV to the late nineteenth century, exploring the complex roles that masking and unmasking have played in the fashioning of our social selves.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eDrawing from memoirs, novels, plays, and paintings,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003e Paris Concealed\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e explores the many domains in which masks have been decisive. Beginning in the court of Versailles, Johnson charts the genesis of courtly politesse and its widespread condemnation by Enlightenment philosophers and political thinkers. He describes strategies deployed in the era of the French Revolution for unmasking traitors and later efforts to penetrate criminal disguises through telltale marks on the body. He portrays the disruptive power of masks in public balls and carnivals and, with the coming of modernity, evokes their unsettling presence within the unconscious. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eCompellingly written and beautifully illustrated, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eParis Concealed\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e lays bare the mask’s transformations, from marking one’s position in a static society to inspiring imagined identities in meritocracies to impeding the elusive search for one’s true self.  To tell the history of masks, Johnson shows, is to tell the history of modern selfhood.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Wide Genre","offers":[{"title":"Soft Cover","offer_id":47505474126044,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"AED","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hard Cover","offer_id":47505474158812,"sku":null,"price":30.0,"currency_code":"AED","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0809\/2044\/5148\/files\/23_d71df503-38ef-48de-95c3-a6640e633ffc.png?v=1769702478","url":"https:\/\/widegenre.com\/products\/paris-concealed-masks-in-the-city-of-light-by-james-h-johnson","provider":"WideGenre","version":"1.0","type":"link"}