Louis XIV face a1'Europe du Nord

It is not a criticism of Professor Hasquin's substantial and interesting book to say that, in its contents, arguments and conclusions, it bears a striking resemblance to Voltaire's Le siècle de Louis XIV. At the heart of both works is a detailed chronicle of Louis XIV's wars, giving due weight to all the states, large and small, which participated in the conflicts, and charting the steady decline of French fortunes from the middle of the 1690s onwards. The two writers also share an admiration for the maritime powers. In England and the Dutch Republic, they praise the military and naval strength, the economic success, the representative systems of government, the political theories, the moral values, the intellectual life and the advances in science. Here, and not in the decadent France of Louis XIV, was the way forward to a more civilised world. Professor Hasquin writes as a Belgian, whose

Admiration · Art · Criticism · Face (sociological concept · Government (linguistics · Humanities · Literature · Political science · Politics · Praise · Social science · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Classics · European Political History Analysis · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Philosophy