Twilight of Princes

Includes material on Louis XIV, the South Sea Bubble, Ch'ien-lung, emperor of China, the War of the Austrian Succession, the first performance of Handel's Messiah, Henry Fielding and Tom Jones, Denis Diderot and his encyclopedia, the Lisbon earthquake, the French and Indian War, James Cook in the South Pacific, the first partition of Poland, James Watt and his steam engine, Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence, the French Revolution, Eli Whitney and the cotton gin, and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte.