Sebastien is entranced by common farmer Gareth Larken, who is determined to show her that titles and fortunes are the least of a man's important assets.

    This intelligent, exceptionally well-written biography presents the full operatic flow of a life of lasting accomplishment.

    The legacy of the French Revolution extends far beyond the borders of France or even Europe-the ramifications of the Revolution of 1789 are truly global and continue to have an impact today. Although the French Revolution was a response to purely domestic concerns, it was immediately noted at the time by observers and many participants that its ideals were universal in scope and that its message traveled well. As a model for both discourse and action, it helped usher in a new age, one we still live in today, of nationalism, constitutional government, mass politics, citizen armies, and popular sovereignty. Twelve authorities analyze the historical and ongoing impact of the French Revolution on American political culture, nationalism and freedom in Eastern Europe, Russian intellectual life, colonial bondage, Middle East politics, the Mexican Revolution, and Chinese socialism.

    The book surveys the ways that various political communities in France during the past two centuries have manufactured different versions of the past in order to define their identities and legitimate their goals. Beginning with a discussion of the bicentenary of the French Revolution in 1989, Robert Gildea moves backward in time to show how rival factions have used various elements of French political culture—from the grandeur of the ancien régime to Catholicism, Jacobinism, Anarchism, and Bonapartism—to further their ends. Gildea shows how proponents of revolution and counterrevolution, church and state, centralism and regionalism, and national identity and nationalism campaigned to achieve the widest possible acceptance of their own view of the past. He describes the continuing battle between Left and Right for association with national heroes such as Joan of Arc and Napoleon. He exposes the reworking of collective views of the past by political communities, in order to increase or recover political legitimacy. Written in clear and trenchant prose, the book offers a new perspective on French history and political culture.