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Not bad but not the best in this great series

Customer Rating:
I have quite a number of the books in this What life was like series. I have generally enjoyed both the visual aspects and the texts and have given high marks to other books in the series. This particular book is great on visuals but appears to fall short on the text. The key figures during this period are adequately presented but the interweaving in of their lives is patchy.

Not as good as others in the series...

Customer Rating:
I purchased WHAT LIFE WAS LIKE IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT and loved it for the myraid of tiny details,fascinating illustrations and concise chronological layout of the political, economical, and social scene. I am less impressed with WHAT LIFE WAS LIKE IN EUROPE'S ROMANTIC ERA. The opening chapters hop around between 1800 and 1840 with dizzying speed and the novice French historian would be hard pressed to follow.

The images are wonderful, but the scope of this book was too grand and the facts are condensed and thrown at the reader too fast, never really letting them learn and appreciate the rich society that was 19th century Europe.