The History of Civilization in Europe (Penguin Classics) - Softcover

Guizot, Francois; Siedentop, Larry; Hazlitt, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140446656 ISBN 13: 9780140446654

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1997

Synopsis

In response to the reactionary arguments of ultra-royalists, Francois Guizot (1787-1874) showed that aristocratic social conditions had gone for ever. The growth of towns and a market economy had forged the bourgeoisie and created a 'democratic' (or capitalist) society based on individual rights. Yet in France, if not in England, this just and inevitable process had been accompanied by the destruction of local autonomy and the creation of an overpowerful state bureaucracy. The History stresses the role of class conflict as a catalyst for social change, and the energizing effect of Europe's plural traditions (Roman, Christian and Germanic). Such themes, argues Siedentop, deeply influenced the thinking of his three great contemporaries Tocqueville, Marx and Mill, revealing Guizot as both 'the key to an epoch' and 'the most trenchant historical mind of the nineteenth century'.

About this title

About the Author

François-Pierre-Guillaume Guizot (1787-1874) was a French statesman, historian, educationalist and writer on religious affairs. Born into a Protestant family at Nîmes and educated at Geneva, he began work as a journalist, met his first wife Paulin and with her founded the review Annales de l'éducation. In 1812 he began teaching history at the Sorbonne; he was largely made famous by the publication of his lectures of 1822-4 and 1828-30. The Histoire générale de la civilisation en Europe (1828) and the Histoire de la civilisation en France (1829), perhaps the two most famous of his works, were, and are considered outstanding. In addition to this his writing on the English civil war, Histoire de la Révolution d'Angleterre (1826-7) was widely read and discussed.
Within the administration from 1814 to 1820, he acted as a pamphleteer and as a depute. He was associated with Royer-Collard in the Doctrinaire group defending the constitutional monarchy against the ultras. After the July Revolution he became minister for public instruction from 1832 to 1836 and minister for foreign affairs from 1840 to 1847. He became Prime Minister in 1847, a position which he held for less than a year a year.
After 1848 he continued to write on English history, wrote a series of Méditations chrétiennes, and was active in the Académie Française, to which he had been elected in 1836.

From the Back Cover

'Civilization is a sort of ocean, constituting the wealth of a people'

A central text in the struggle for representative government in France, The History of Civilization in Europe is also one of the finest general histories of Europe ever written. In response to the reactionary arguments of ultra-royalists, François Guizot (1787-1874) showed that aristocratic social conditions had gone forever. The growth of towns and a market economy had forged the bourgeoisie and created a 'democratic' society based on individual rights. Yet in France, if not in England, this just and inevitable process had been accompanied by the destruction of local autonomy and the creation of an overpowerful state bureaucracy. The History stresses the role of class conflict as a catalyst for social change, and the energizing effect of Europe's plural traditions.

In his introduction Larry Siedentop argues that Guizot's themes deeply influenced the thinking of his three great contemporaries Tocqueville, Marx and Mill. This edition also contains a short bibliography and notes.

Translated by William Hazlitt
Edited with an introduction by Larry Siedentop

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0140446656
• ISBN 13: 9780140446654
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 304