In the year 1800, almost everyone lived very much as their ancestors had, going back countless generations. Yet, everywhere there were unmistakable signs that all of this would soon change forever. In the year 1800, the world suddenly found itself enmeshed in a web of mercantilism, war, and political intrigue, out of which a new world - our world - was struggling to be born.
In this compelling narrative renowned historian Olivier Bernier provides us with a riveting chronicle of that time, so vastly different from our own yet so pregnant with meaning for us as we embark upon a new century.
From Europe's bloodstained landscape to the prosperous ports and homesteads of a nascent United States, from the Spanish dominions of Central and South America to the slave trading posts of Africa's Gold Coast and the lavish interiors of China's Forbidden City, Bernier takes us on a dizzying journey around the world, providing a finely textured portrait of civilisation at the dawn of the modern era.
