Meet 35 of the most influential people who lived during the 200 most difficult years in the history of the West. Between the years 1715 and 1914, the lives of these artists, writers, scientists, and leaders shaped our times and reflected their own.
You'll meet such figures as Charles Darwin, Sir Robert Walpole, David Lloyd George, Mary Wollstonecraft, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, Napoleon Bonaparte, and others whose lives represent the crucial forces that shaped European history during two decisive centuries. You'll also examine the transformation of Europe from a world of lord and serf, horse and carriage, superstition and disease into today's modern state of boss and worker, steam and steel, science and medicine.
As you grow to understand the living context of European history, you appreciate the great transforming themes embodied by the people who populate this fascinating march. The two most important themes are the movement toward democracy-culminating in the French Revolution-that dominated the first of the two centuries covered, and the Industrial Revolution with the explosion of science and technology that dominated the second.
In choosing the characters whose lives most reflect these themes, Professor Steinberg has not confined himself to those who are most often studied-monarchs, politicians, military leaders-but has included scientists, artists, philosophers, and industrialists, and even an entire population threatened with starvation-the Irish. With a fascinating approach to European history, the biographical approach of these 36 lectures provides a fun way to look at the great changes of the period and to educate ourselves about the world.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
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I think they are two different things and trying to decide which is better is like trying to compare coffee and tea when you like both. Coffee is best in the morning, tea at five o'clock. The audio version makes driving to work somrthing to look forward to and Reading is better in bed.
This is a book about the fascinating lives of fascinating people. Which is the best is impossible to answer. Would you ask someone to choose the best pearl from a string of finely matched top quality gems?
There were so many scenes, so much detail and all so finely dovetailed to create an absorbing canvas of the history of the period. It was like going up close to a Breugel with a magnifying glass. Whatever was in focus at any one time was immediately gripping.
This is a book that needs to be taken a chapter at a time so that one can assimilate the information and let it settle into place before adding, as it were, the next piece of the jigsaw.
I would like to congratulate Professor Steinberg on this very successful experiment and thank him for providing such a rich learning experience. I have recommended it to all my friends.
- cathy westmacott