In this book, now available in paperback, he examines the history of France from the rise of the Capetians in the mid-tenth century to the execution of Joan of Arc in the mid-fifteenth. He takes the evolution of power and the emergence of the French state as his central themes, and guides the reader through complex - and, in many respects, still unfamiliar, yet fascinating terrain. He describes the growth of the castle and the village, the building blocks of the new Western European civilization of the second millenium AD.

Georges Duby is Emeritus Professor at the College de France and one of the most eminent French historians. He is a memeber of the Academie Francaise, and holds the French National Order of Merit and Legion of Honour, amongst other distinctions.