Europe in the Eighteenth Century

Aristocracy and the Bourgeois Challenge

George Rudé

‘This is a book that really can be recommended to beginners, not because it over-simplifies but because it provides them with all the basic information’ – Times Literary Supplement

The eighteenth century in Europe was a period of profound revolutionary change: in agriculture and industry in England; in politics in France. In this masterly account of European social history, George Rudé examines the development of government, institutions, cities and economies, and the religious, artistic and intellectual ideas circulating at the time. Particular attention is given to why these factors contributed to the overthrow of the established order in some countries – notably in France in 1789 – but not in others, and how the growth of social classes and their subsequent conflicts acted as agents of historical change.