In this masterly study, based on the latest evidence, Nigel Aston sheds new light on a dynamic period in European history and its impact on the next 200 years of religious life in France.

This new introduction to religious history reviews the events of the turbulent period of the French Revolution. It is an accessible summary of key developments in the confrontation between the Churches and the Enlightenment. The text is supplemented by illuminating illustrations, maps and a glossary.

Eighteenth-century Europe witnessed monumental upheavals in both the Catholic and Protestant faiths and the repercussions rippled down to the churches' religious art forms. Nigel Aston now chronicles here the intertwining of cultural and institutional turmoil during this pivotal century.
The sustained popularity of religious art in the face of competition from increasingly prevalent secular artworks lies at the heart of this study. Religious art staked out new spaces of display in state institutions, palaces, and private collections, the book shows, as well as taking advantage of...

This new introduction to religious history reviews the events of the turbulent period of the French Revolution. It is an accessible summary of key developments in the confrontation between the Churches and the Enlightenment. The text is supplemented by illuminating illustrations, maps and a glossary.

Lord Shelburne, Prime Minister in 1782-83, was a profoundly important politician, whose achievements included the negotiation of the peace with the newly-independent United States. This book constitutes a major and long overdue reappraisal of the politician considered by Disraeli to be the -most neglected Prime Minister-. The book indicates, caters for, and leads the revival of interest in high politics, including its gendered aspects. It covers Shelburne's friends, his finances, and his politics, and places him carefully within both an international and a national context. For the first time...