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Rating: 
Summary: All in all, a very worthwhile project . . .
Review: A big book, nearly 700 page long but a very detailed picture of the thoughts and life styles of the France which ushered in the Age of Enlightenment, leading up to the Revolution. Some information was too detailed for me, such as references to percentages of populations which did this or that. Some of the book contained only Roche's opinions based upon the facts he dug up. Overall, it was highly informative but not surprising. I suppose that I was not surprised with the finding that the rural areas of France were slower to change than the cities, that Paris set the intellectual pace for the rest of the nation, that blind faith in religion suffocated thought, that nobility made every effort to maintain its position over the lower classes.Roche, however, did give a good picture of how the stage was set for the Enlightenment, going into almost every facet of day-to-day living in France in the late 18th Century. I got a good picture, though a brief one, of the reigns of Louis XIV, XV and XVI and for the first time in my education, I am able to get these reigning monarchs straight. Roche has a quirky, teacher style of writing, though clearly expressed. Almost on every page, he will tell you that such-and-such happened for two, three, or four reasons. The numbering method of exposition is an insight into the way his mind is organized. It is also evidence that he did not merely set down his factual findings, but that he thought about what he found and tried to relate them to what was the historical result. All in all, a very worthwhile project, reading this massive book.
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