Questioning those who view Impressionism solely in terms of artistic technique, T.J. Clark describes the painting of Manet, Degas, Seurat and others as an attempt to give form to France's modernity and seek out its typical representatives, be they barmaids, sightseers or the petits bourgeois.

The 16th revised and updated edition of this introduction to art, from the earliest cave paintings to experimental art. New artists have been incorporated such as Corot, Kollwitz and Nolde, and six fold-outs present large-scale works such as Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece.

A history of the French Revolution, this book gives an account of the first few years of the great Revolution in France, and of the decades that led up to it.

At the offset there were not one, but two revolutions: egalitarian and authoritarian. The tension between the two characterized the period and shaped the Republic that in the end emerged from the ruins of the Ancient Regime. The author provides an account of the years leading up to the Revolution and of the Revolution itself.

Charts the extraordinary events that beset Paris at the close of the Second Empire. It also paints a richly detailed picture of life in Paris - castigated by moralists for its licentiousness - from its palaces, theatres, hotels and department stores to its prisons, hospitals and back-street dives.

Shows how, with the eclipse of abstract expressionism, art has deviated irrevocably from the narrative course that Vasari helped define for it in the Renaissance. This book shows that it wasn't until the invention of Pop art that the historical understanding of the means and ends of art was nullified.