A História da Civilização - Volume 11: A Era de Napoleão

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The Age of Napoleon (870 pages, first published 1975 )

(series: The Story of Civilization #11)

The Age of Napoleon surveys the amazing chain of events that wrenched Europe out of the Enlightenment and into the Age of Democracy:

* 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 the provincial Corsican military student to the Emperor commanding the largest army in history

* Napoleon's fall---his army's destruction in the snows of Russia, his exile to Elba, escape and reconquest of the throne, and 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 our own era.