King of the World

Louis XIV wanted to conquer time and space - to push the borders of France which he inherited out into Flanders, Burgundy and Alsace, and beyond, to expand French dominion in the Americas and the East, to win what he called 'the exquisite praises of history' through conquests and to create a great palace which would surpass all others and secure his immortality. He became the epitome and exemplar of monarchy, the king all his contemporaries and successors imitated, envied, or fought against.

King of the World is a magnificent and startlingly insightful account of the man who dominated the seventeenth century more than any other. To what extent did Louis have absolute power, or was decision-making in the hands of ministers and mistresses? How much of the extravagance of Versailles was for show, and how far was Louis himself the show? How could such a civilized man commit so many acts of barbarism? How effective was he as a ruler and a general? Did he leave his country stronger or weaker than it was before? Mansel offers original and persuasive answers to these questions, and weaves a brilliant tapestry of the life of one of the most compelling figures in European history.

“No other English-language biography has so successfully given us a portrait of him as man and monarch ... superb.--Gareth Russell, The Times”

The life of the Sun King, under whom France founded colonies in Africa, America and the East, is richly treated ... This nuanced study makes you feel for the old monster. -- Simon Heffer Daily Telegraph Books of the Year Philip Mansel's superb King of the World: The Life of Louis XIV will become a classic. Magisterial and definitive, this is the life's work of one of our leading historians. -- Jane Ridley Spectator Books of the Year the ultimate biography of the Sun King...a work of scholarly analysis and flamboyant anecdotage, international conflict and sexual politics -- Simon Sebag-Montefiore BBC History Magazine thorough, scholarly and fluent... breath-taking... indispensable -- Donald Lee The Art Newspaper To do [Louis XIV] justice and encapsulate his person, his plans, his successes and his failures, all which involved a dizzying cast of characters and a mind-numbing web of relationships, is no easy task. With his extensive studies of court ritual and his sympathy for the Bourbons, Philip Mansel is the man for the job. ... Mansel's descriptions of how Versailles functioned are masterful and high-entertaining. -- Adam Zamoyski Standpoint On a scale suitable to its subject, King of the World is in one way an extended moral fable ... Mansel tells the story of these wars fluently and fairly -- David Crane Spectator Time and space both yield before Mansel's authorial ambition on quite as vast a scale as Louis's own territorial, reputational, amatory and gastronomic appetites. -- Minoo Dinshaw Daily Telegraph Excellent though Mansel is on the larger picture - you will find no more comprehensive biography of this extraordinary monarch - his genius lies in unpacking the complexities of Louis' royal court. -- Miranda Seymour Financial Times Mansel is master of the well-chosen anecdote and of the pithy summary. Interesting details sit comfortable within the big picture that he portrays ... this is a scholarly, readable and impressively wide-ranging account of the longest reign in history. -- Julia Priest Times Literary Supplement Almost everything about Louis XIV - the size of his palaces, the length of his reign, the height of his heels - was on a gargantuan scale. ... Such splendour is there not just to dazzle, but also to deceive, and excavating the "real" Louis poses a major challenge for any biography. Philip Mansel's impressive new survey - the best single-volume account of the reign in any language - moves deftly between these fictive and objective worlds. He revels in the fetes and fireworks, the frescoes and tapestries, that glorified Louis's rule. But he is never blind to Louis' failings and absurdities, and clearly delineates how the "absolute monarch" was never as absolute as he wishes the world to think. ... Mansel brings this teeming, sybaritic, ultra-competitive Versailles vividly to life -- John Adamson Sunday Times A superb biography ... wonderfully detailed and fluent ... Huge amounts of information have been digested ... Mansel is alive to every nuance of rank and relation and a master of the mechanics of life at Versailles and the other royal palaces. This mastery naturally extends to dynastic relations and to the diplomatic history of Louis's reign ... The portrait of Louis that emerges from this titanic effort is compelling: a man of large appetites, capable of intense affection and loyalty, vengeful, gracious, vain, hard-working, hardened in the exercise of his own will, susceptible to flattery, conceited in his isolation, capricious, unforgiving and stubborn ... It seems hard to believe ... that this biography will ever, in English at least, be surpassed. -- Hamish Robinson Oldie Mansel ... treads the line between the academic and the accessible effectively ... No other English-language biography has so successfully given us a portrait of him as man and monarch ... His grasp of the sources is superb -- Gareth Russell The Times A superb biography of Louis XIV by Philip Mansel, the best non-French historian of France. Historical biography does not get better than this -- A. N. Wilson The Week

Philip Mansel is a historian of courts and cities, France and the Ottoman Empire. His previous books include Louis XVIII, The Court of France- 1789-1830 and Paris Between Empires, 1814-1852; Sultans in Splendour- The Last Years of the Ottoman World, Constantinople- City of the World's Desire and Levant- Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Asiatic Society and the Institute of Historical Research, and is President of the Conseil Scientifique at the Centre de Recherche du Ch teau de Versailles. In 2010 he was appointed Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, in 2012 received the London Library Life in Literature Award, and in 2016 was awarded the Order of the Crown by the Belgian government.

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