Books in the History of France series

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.

At the offset there were not one, but two revolutions: egalitarian and authoritarian. The tension between the two characterized the period and shaped the Republic that in the end emerged from the ruins of the Ancient Regime. The author provides an account of the years leading up to the Revolution and of the Revolution itself.

In this book, now available in paperback, he examines the history of France from the rise of the Capetians in the mid--tenth century to the execution of Joan of Arc in the mid--fifteenth.