France and the age of Revolution: Regimes Old and New from Louis XIV to Napoleon Bonaparte

From the turmoil and tragedy of the French Revolution to the rise and fall of the enigmatic figure of Napoleon Bonaparte, the history of France between 1789 and 1815 is one of the most enduringly fascinating - and widely-studied - periods of history. In this volume, the renowned historian William Doyle provides a new perspective on several key themes within the history of this period - from the world of the Ancien Regime to the Battle of Waterloo. He sheds new light on the causes of the French Revolution and the impact of the revolution outside France. In taking a fresh look at the Napoleonic Empire, he considers the influences on Napoleon's leadership decisions and the machinations of his court. Written by one of the leading historians of Revolutionary France, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the French Revolution and Napoleonic Europe. Johann Georg von Hahn - a nineteenth-century Austrian diplomat and explorer - is generally considered to be the founder of Albanian Studies as a scholarly discipline. It was he who first studied the Balkan country and its people, and who brought them to the attention of the academic world. Despite this acclaim, his work has not been widely available in English until now. In this volume, Robert Elsie has translated Hahn's most important works relating to his travels and studies in Albania during the mid-nineteenth century. Hahn's interests were broad, but he was especially interested in the tribes of Albania and Kosovo and made several ethnographic studies of the cultures and traditions of the tribes he encountered on his travels - including the Kelmendi, Hoti and Kastrati tribes. This volume will be invaluable readers for scholars of Balkan history and anthropology. Illustrations -- Introduction -- Part I: Functions for Sale -- 1. Colbert and the Sale of Offices -- 2.Voltaire and Venality: The Ambiguities of an Abuse -- 3. Secular Simony: The Clergy and the Sale of Offices in Eighteenth-Century France -- 4. Changing Notions of Public Corruption (c.1770-1850) -- Part II: The Old Order Disintegrates -- 5. The Union with Ireland in a European Context -- 6. The French Revolution: Possible because Thinkable or Thinkable because Possible? -- 7. Desacralising Desacralisation -- 8. The French Revolution and Monarchy -- 9. The American Revolution and the European Nobility -- Part III :Napoleon: An Undemocratic Revolutionary -- 10. The Napoleonic Nobility Revisited -- 11. Napoleon, Women and the French Revolution -- 12. The Political Culture of the French Empire -- 13. Revolutionary Napoleon -- Notes -- Index Classic accounts of Albania in the 19th century.