LA FIN DES EMPIRES

Is history doomed to repeat itself? This familiar question is well worth asking when we consider the rise and fall of empires.

Since ancient times, certain lands, propelled by their military might, gold and conquering spirit, are hoisted to the rank of preponderant power and dominate a large part of the world. Yet, as the saying goes, all great empires perish. Causes vary, though a basic scenario applies to most cases: development crises; economic
bankruptcy; exhaustion of the military model; and of course the appearance and increasing capacities of rivals. For the first time, renowned historians, specialists in their respective fields, brilliantly recount and analyze the decline and fall of the great empires that created the world as we know it, from Rome to Washington.

Director of the Fondation Napoléon, THIERRY LENTZ has established himself as today's leading expert on the imperial era, evidenced by his New History of the First Empire in four volumes (Fayard, 2002-2010). Perrin recently published his The Congress of Vienna. A refounding of Europe 1814-1815 (2013); The 20 days of Fontainebleau. Napoleon's first abdication 31 March-20 April 1814 (2014) and Waterloo (2015).
Professor at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris, PATRICE GUENIFFEY has published notably The number and the reason (EHESS, 1993), Politics of the Terror, Essay on revolutionary violence (Gallimard, 2000). 18 Brumaire: epilogue of the French revolution (Perrin, 2008) and Bonaparte
(Gallimard, 2013). All received unanimous critical acclaim. He has since edited the successful collective work by top historians Last days of the kings, published by Perrin and Le Figaro (2014).