Drawn from the author's series of lectures at the Sorbonne in 1828, this is a masterful account of the key features of civilizations at the various stages of their development. Guizot was in the tradition of great French historians such as Thierry; and his analysis was considered sufficiently sound to influence later thinkers and writers such as de Tocqueville, Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill. Indeed, Marx lifts the basic framework of the development of civilizations direct from Guizot for 'Das Kapital'.

British readers will find Guizot's account of the end of Cromwell's Commonwealth and the government of Charles II that replaced it of especial interest, because he demonstrates that governments come to power with a range of good intentions and with a desire to change the world; but five, or ten, or fifteen years later the people get rid of them because they have all had their principles (if they had any to begin with) well and truly beaten out of them by circumstance, temptation and the sheer weight of events. Faced with the likely imminent removal of Britain's Labour government in elections in 2010, this analysis is timely, and shows that the pattern of the last few changes of Government - the replacement of Callaghan's Labour by Thatcher's Conservatives in 1979, and their replacement in turn in 1997 by Tony Blair and New Labour - were predictable both in their causes, their results and their effects. Truly there is nothing new under the sun. ( )

Good condition. $30.