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Loading... The Age of Napoleon (1975)by Will Durant, Ariel Durant
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Classic Durant. Exhaustively detailed, delightfully opinionated. ( ) if you have space for only one book on Napoleon, or the history of Europe during his lifetime, this is it. It's a thick book, but it has an immense amount to say. This book demonstrates the power of chronology over the historical mind, because in the late 1920's, following his very successful "A History of Philosophy", Will Durant though t he'd write a book on Napoleon. Well, it became obvious that he'd have to start somewhat earlier than Napoleon if he wanted to explain Bonaparte, and thus the eleven volume "Story of Civilization" was begun. This is the last volume, published fifty years after the original idea forced its way to the surface. And you can't get a better survey of the history of Europe and the Middle east than this series. There's a notable quote in every paragraph, and thousands of insights on many topics. Excluding the very disappointing first Volume, that no one should bother with, every book is definitive between it's parameters. In a sense, this book is the Encyclopedia of Western Civilization. There are a lot of second hand sets floating around, get one. no reviews | add a review
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An engrossing volume on European civilization by Pulitzer Prize-winning historians Will and Ariel DurantThe Age of Napoleon, the eleventh and final volume of the Story of Civilization, surveys the amazing chain of events that wrenched Europe out of the Enlightenment and into the age of democracy. In this masterful work, listeners will encounter the French Revolution-from the storming of the Bastille to the guillotining of the king; the revolution's leaders Danton, Desmoulins, Robespierre, Saint-Just-all cut down by the reign of terror they inaugurated; Napoleon's meteoric rise-from provincial Corsican military student to emperor and commander of the largest army in history; Napoleon's fall-his army's destruction in the snows of Russia, his exile to Elba, his escape and reconquest of the throne, and his ultimate defeat at Waterloo by the combined forces of Europe; the birth of Romanticism and the dawning of a new age of active democracy and a rising middle class, laying the foundation for a new era. |PrefaceBook One: The French Revolution, 1789-99Book Two: Napoleon Ascendant, 1799-1811Book Three: Britain, 1789-1812Book Four: The Challenged Kings, 1789-1812Part Five: Finale, 1811-1815. No library descriptions found. |
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