num_pages: 688
description: There can be few more mesmerizing historical narratives than the story of how the confident monarchy left by Louis XIV in 1715 became the discredited failure toppled by revolution in 1789. This brilliant new book is the first in forty years to describe the whole period, from the last days of the “Sun King” to the wars of Napoleon. In a groundbreaking work of scholarship, Colin Jones argues that, contrary to popular belief, the house of Bourbon’s downfall was hardly a foregone conclusion. Producing an illuminating account of a society torn apart from within, he recounts the saga of how a dynamic French society—the heart of the Enlightenment—fell prey to the debt and humiliation of its wars against Britain.
language: English
title: The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon
titlecomplete: The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon
characters: Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, Louis XV of France, Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, Count of Maurepas, Denis Diderot, Louis Auguste Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Madame de Pompadour, Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI of France, Jacques Necker, Étienne François, duc de Choiseul, Edmond Jean François Barbier, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, François-Noël Babeuf, André-Hercule de Fleury, Jean le Rond d'Alembert, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, François Fénelon, Georges Danton, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Maximilien de Robespierre, Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, Jean Sylvain Bailly, Emmanuel-Armand de Richelieu, duc d'Aiguillon, John Law, Louis XIV of France, Charles X of France, Charles Alexandre de Calonne, René Nicolas Charles Augustin de Maupeou, Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune, Napoléon Bonaparte, Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes
genres: French Revolution, France, History, 18th Century, European History, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 121
series: New Penguin History of France
publisher: Penguin Books