The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon

A narrative exploration of the way in which the confident and secure monarchy which Louis XIV bequeathed to his successors in 1715 developed into failed régime toppled by Revolution in 1789, and how the Revolution mutated into its Napoleonic manifestation over the following ten years. Colin Jones' many contention is that France was not doomed to revolution and that the “ancien regime” did remain dynamic and innovatory, but that it was finally destroyed by the intolerable costs and humiliation of its wars with Britain.
 
Reviewed in The Independent by William Doyle, Professor of History at Bristol University