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spinnerroweok's review
4.0
Another one down. I liked this one a little better. Probably because I am more familiar with the subjects in it. More philosophical in slant. On to The Age of Voltaire. 3 more to go.
endlessmidnight's review
5.0
One of the strongest volume detailing the period of French domination under the Sun King but also includes most of Europe, the Ottoman Empire as part of the narrative.
guojing's review
5.0
So great is this series that I find myself insisting that everybody I know - and even some I do not - should acquire it for themselves and endeavour to conquer its something like 9,000 pages, a feat no doubt as impossible as that of conquering Everest in the minds of most people. But that is a feat of physical endurance, whereas this is an immensely more rewarding one: the history of science, technology, philosophy, music, literature, nations and their rulers and people, of great men and great scoundrels, of clashes of theology and murders that shake nations, of heroes and villains far grander in scope than the most imaginative of novelists, and all of it true. Oh how great is the history of mankind!
Along with all the other volumes, this is a masterpiece. But this is where the period becomes so much smaller while the books remains just as large as ever, if not even larger! Whereas past installments covered centuries, this and the following books cover decades! Yet I am sure that poor old Will could just as easily have written ten more volumes to fill in the period between Louis XIV and Napoleon.
I consider this to be the volume that serves to introduce the Enlightenment. The last volume, which I had expected to serve thereas, was a disappointment, perhaps the weakest of the series. But most thankfully that is not the case for this volume: this volume is, like six of its seven predecessors, a masterpiece. An era so filled with the most admirable of traits: the love of knowledge! Perhaps my greatest complaint is that over 30 pages were dedicated to Spinoza but only around 15 to Locke and another 20 or so to Newton and to Leibniz. But those four men, together, serve only as the most familiar names of the era in the quest for knowledge, alongside many others, such as Pierre Bayle and Thomas Hobbes.
There are, of course, many other strings that hold together the story of this impressive era. Literature prospered with Moliere and Racine, Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe. Courtly manners reached their pinnacle for a time under Louis XIV and his many amours before finally settling down once and for all with the morganatic Madame de Mainenon. Wars decimated populations and ultimately destroyed Louis's reputation, while another war - the Great Northern War, one which is far too much overlooked - saw the destruction of Sweden's empire to the aggrandizement of Russia. This was truly a dizzying era in human history, one which saw the beginning of the spark of true secularism which would come to so dominate our own times. Indeed, this is the birth of the modern world. This is the Age of Louis XIV.
Along with all the other volumes, this is a masterpiece. But this is where the period becomes so much smaller while the books remains just as large as ever, if not even larger! Whereas past installments covered centuries, this and the following books cover decades! Yet I am sure that poor old Will could just as easily have written ten more volumes to fill in the period between Louis XIV and Napoleon.
I consider this to be the volume that serves to introduce the Enlightenment. The last volume, which I had expected to serve thereas, was a disappointment, perhaps the weakest of the series. But most thankfully that is not the case for this volume: this volume is, like six of its seven predecessors, a masterpiece. An era so filled with the most admirable of traits: the love of knowledge! Perhaps my greatest complaint is that over 30 pages were dedicated to Spinoza but only around 15 to Locke and another 20 or so to Newton and to Leibniz. But those four men, together, serve only as the most familiar names of the era in the quest for knowledge, alongside many others, such as Pierre Bayle and Thomas Hobbes.
There are, of course, many other strings that hold together the story of this impressive era. Literature prospered with Moliere and Racine, Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe. Courtly manners reached their pinnacle for a time under Louis XIV and his many amours before finally settling down once and for all with the morganatic Madame de Mainenon. Wars decimated populations and ultimately destroyed Louis's reputation, while another war - the Great Northern War, one which is far too much overlooked - saw the destruction of Sweden's empire to the aggrandizement of Russia. This was truly a dizzying era in human history, one which saw the beginning of the spark of true secularism which would come to so dominate our own times. Indeed, this is the birth of the modern world. This is the Age of Louis XIV.
darwin8u's review
4.0
Not his best. Occasionaly repetitive, but contains so many jewels it is hard not to love.
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