PAUL JOHNSON'S MASTERWORK
When BIRTH OF THE MODERN, WORLD SOCIETY 1815-1830 was first published in the United States in 1991, it quickly became a national bestseller. Because as the late, great historian Eugen Weber said in his New York Times Book Review review, the book is a "tour de force."
In less than 1,100 pages, Johnson squeezes in the enormous gallery of statesmen, rogues, poets, warriors, painters, inventors, conquerers, novelists, industrialists, patriots, libertines and even early economists who began the world's rapid progress toward ever-greater prosperity, if not ever-greater peace.
As someone who's reading the thing for at least the 4th time, I can attest that it's a marvelous read.