Books by Emmanuel (College de France) Le Roy Ladurie

From autobiographical writings, this book reconstructs the extraordinary life of Thomas Platter and the lives of his sons. It expands the historical contexts of these accounts and, in the process, brings to life the customs, perceptions and character of an age on the threshold of modernity.

An account of the early modern period in France, when relative social and economic stability provided a backdrop for the splendours of France's great Renaissance Prince, Francis I, and then for the tensions and bloodshed of later 16th-century France.