The Age of Louis XIV

Will Durant · Ariel Durant

jun 2011 · Simon and Schuster

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This volume of the Pulitzer Prize–winning series offers a comprehensive view of European civilization during the long and powerful reign of Louis XIV.

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.

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.

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Will Durant (1885–1981) was awarded the Pulitzer Prize (1968) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1977). He spent more than fifty years writing his critically acclaimed eleven-volume series, The Story of Civilization (the later volumes written in conjunction with his wife, Ariel). A champion of human rights issues, such as the brotherhood of man and social reform, long before such issues were popular, Durant’s writing still educates and entertains readers around the world.