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by William Doyle (Author)
Since time immemorial Europe had been dominated by nobles and nobilities. In the eighteenth century their power seemed better entrenched than ever. But in 1790 the French revolutionaries made a determined attempt to abolish nobility entirely. "Aristocracy" became the term for everything they were against, and the nobility of France, so recently the most dazzling and sophisticated elite in the European world, found itself persecuted in ways that horrified counterparts in other countries.
Author Biography
William Doyle was Professor of History at the University of Bristol from 1986 to 2008 and author of numerous publications on ancien regime Europe and the French Revolution, including The Oxford History of the French Revolution and The Origins of the French Revolution, both also published by Oxford University Press. He is a Fellow of the British Academy.
