A lavish survey of art and culture from the French Revolution to the mid-nineteenth century, John Sweetman's new study covers artistic developments in the closing years of the ancien regime - via the catalysts of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution - to the age of Romanticism and beyond. He is an astute guide, as he leads us from Pope to Pushkin, from Voltaire and Haydn to Dickens and Delocroix, tracing the growing autonomy of artists as they reached new audiences and discovered new subjects. This comprehensive survey also shows how European artists were conquering new worlds geographically too, eastward across Russia and westward across America, leaving us on the threshold of a recognizably modern age.