Bernier is an art historian who undertook to survey the world in 1800, commenting on the events and personalities of the time. He is at his most expansive on France under Napolean, and on the United States in the time of Jefferson as the president. He is less persuasive, and less detailed, on Africa, and the Orient, but still the concept of a computed tomogram slice, so to speak, of history, tied a variety of issues together in a very interesting way ( )

3375. The World in 1800, by Olivier Bernier (read Nov. 30, 2000) This is the second book by Bernier I've read, having previously (on Jan 23, 1990) read his Words of Fire, Deeds of Blood: The Mob, the Monarchy, and the French Revolution. That was a very good book, and somewhat to my surprise this was also. It attempts to tell what the world was like in the years around 1800 in France, Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia, the USA, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, China, Japan, India, Turkey, and Africa, which might seem like an awesome undertaking. But he does I think a very good job of it, and I consider reading this to have been very worthwhile. ( )