<div>The Story of Civilization, Volume VII: A history of European civilization in the period of Shakespeare, Bacon, Montaigne, Rembrandt, Galileo, and Descartes: 1558-1648. This is the seventh volume of the classic, Pulitzer Prize-winning series.</div>

The Age of Reason Begins

<div><B>This volume of the Pulitzer Prize–winning series offers a comprehensive view of European civilization during the long and powerful reign of Louis XIV.</B><br/><br/>Will and Ariel Durant continue their magisterial history of the Western world as France exerted an almost hypnotic dominance over the European continent. Their expansive narrative begins at the end of the Thirty Years War, a conflict which decimated the Holy Roman Empire and allowed France to flourish. This was also the time when Louis XIV, at the age of five, came to the throne.<br/><br/>Book One examines the French zenith from a number of perspectives: from the politics at court to the king’s relationship to the church, the arts, and literary greats such as Moliere and Racine. In Book Two, the narrative moves to England, where Oliver Cromwell leads a revolt against monarchy, and authors including John Milton and Jonathan Swift write their immortal epics. With five books in all, the authors offer a sweeping survey of the era, from Peter the Great’s Russia to the advances in science and medicine, Isaac Newton’s revolutionary ideas, and the great philosophical debate between faith and reason.</div>

The Age of Louis XIV

<div><B>“[An] in-depth portrayal of Napoleon not only as a military leader and despot but as a philosopher and a man who understood human nature.” —John A. Semone, <I>New York Times</I></B><br/><br/>An engrossing volume on European civilization by Pulitzer Prize–winning historians Will and Ariel Durant.<br/><br/><I>The Age of Napoleon</I>, 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, and 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; and 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.<br/><br/>“[The authors’] gifts are accuracy, clarity, and the organization of a huge amount of material into a lively narrative.” —<I>Saturday Review</I><br/><br/>“Carefully researched, beautifully written.” —<I>Library Journal</I><br/><br/>“[The Durants] are incapable of writing a dull book.” —<I>Time</I></div>

Ariel Durant
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Books By Ariel Durant (3 Books)

The Age of Reason Begins

The Age of Louis XIV

The Age of Napoleon

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