Concise, convincing and exciting, this is Christopher Hibbert’s brilliant account of the events that shook eighteenth-century Europe to its foundations. With a mixture of lucid storytelling and fascinating detail, he charts the French Revolution from its beginnings at an impromptu meeting on an indoor tennis court at Versailles in 1789 right through to 1795 and the coup d'etat that brought Napoleon to power. In the process he explains the drama and complexities of this epoch-making era in the compelling and accessible manner he has made his trademark.