The Age of Napoleon

The Age of Napoleon surveys the amazing chain of events that wrenched Europe out of the Enlightenment and into the Age of Democracy:* The French Revolution---from the storming of the Bastille to the guillotining of the King* The revolution's leaders Danton, Desmoulins, Robespierre, Saint-Just---all cut down by the reign of terror they inaugurated.* Napoleon's meteoric rise---from the provincial Corsican military student to the Emperor commanding the largest army in history* Napoleon's fall---his army's destruction in the snows of Russia, his exile to Elba, escape and reconquest of the throne, and ultimate defeat at Waterloo by the combined forces of Europe.* The birth of romanticism and the dawning of a new age of active democracy and a rising middle class, laying the foundation for our own era.