The World in 1800
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
"Olivier Bernier's richly detailed, engaging, and elegant books offers a splendid refresher course on a pivotal moment in world history - the dawn of the modern era."
- Francine du Plessix Gray
In the year 1800, almost everyone lived very much as their ancestors had, going back countless generations. In the countryside, illiterate peasants - the majority of the population - still scratched out a living from the soil, while in the cities, merchants hawked their wares in open-air market stalls and nobles led lives of opulent leisure. Yet everywhere were unmistakable signs that all of this would soon change forever. Spread by France's seemingly invincible citizens' army, the seeds of republicanism had been planted throughout Europe. In the Americas, the United States had proved to the world the feasibility of a government of, by, and for the people, and Mexico was threatening to follow its lead. And while it still took four months for an official dispatch to travel from London to Calcutta, Europe's leading nations - France and England - had established global empire-building strategies. In the year 1800, the world suddenly found itself enmeshed in a web of money, war, and political intrigue, out of which a new world - our world - was struggling to be born.
Bringing all his talents as a first-rate storyteller to bear, Bernier takes us inside the courts and parliaments of the major powers to listen in on the political discourse of the day. He leads us into the boudoirs and ballrooms of the rich, the cramped homes of the middle class, and the hovels of the poor to provide an intimate glimpse of the private lives of the first modern men and women.
A spellbinding account of one of the most momentous chapters in the story of civilization, The World in 1800 is a singular achievement by a premier historian and an irresistible read.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
French historian Bernier (Words of Fire, Deeds of Blood) surveys the globe at the turn of the 19th century and finds there the key to modern culture and politics. He writes (less than convincingly), "1800 is the beginning of our own era." He argues that the palaces and performance halls, salons and Senate chambers, colleges and churches of 1800 were home to great transformations that not only shaped the 19th century but the 20th as well. In China, a soaring population, an expanding economy and a revival of popular religion were all posing problems; the British Empire was taking root in India; the American government was just starting to flex its muscles. But for Bernier, the event with the widest-reaching consequences was the French Revolution; it told kings and queens across the world that the era of monarchical authority was over. At the same time, European culture, politics, art and design influenced cultural production and political change around the globe. Continental furniture and architecture were mimicked in Asia and the Americas, and citizens in Delaware and Dresden coveted Parisian cuisine. In contrast, Bernier's four chapters on North America do little more than rehearse familiar political stories about the XYZ Affair and the debate over federalism, and his 20-page treatment of Africa is even skimpier. As a result, although filled with good detail, the book hardly earns its title; Bernier is far more interested in 1789 (when the French Revolution heated up) and the years between 1760 and 1795 (when his cultural hero, Haydn, produced his greatest works) than in the events of 1800 itself. B&w illustrations.
