What is your view of the medieval world? A quaint world of trhttp://historybooksreview.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/multiethnic-team-using-green-screen-tablet-to-over-MVKF9J9.jpgion and custom? A low tech stable society where everyone knew their place? I don’t know about you but I for a long time wasn’t all that interested in the Middle Ages. It just seemed like a sort of hiatus between the civilisation

Flaubert is most famous for Madame Bovary. Despite now being regarded as one of the all time classics of literature Madame Bovary at the time got Flaubert into a lot of trouble, and he ended up in court accused of corrupting the nation’s morals. Quite an achievement when the country in question is France. The

  There is something very satisfying in reading history written by contemporaries in the original text version. It has that feeling that you are getting it as it is – and you can also pick up on what things seemed important at the time without the benefit of hindsight.

I am now actively working on this project again. The easy bit has been rereading the book – I am half way through volume 3 and enjoying it immensely. My current ambition is to record a 10-15 minute podcast for every chapter, which taken together would give a feel for what the book is about.

The period of upheaval that started with the French Revolution and ended at Waterloo cries out to be treated as a single phenomenon. From the moment of the storming of the Bastille to the final breaking of the French lines at Waterloo the continent of Europe and to some extent the rest of the World,

This really is the big one! It is impossible to do justice to this book in a single blog post but it is also impossible to ignore it. My solution is to review individual chapters in their own right. I don’t know how many I will do, maybe not many and probably not all, but