In the heady quarter-century between 1775 and 1799, people set out into a new age. The American War of Independence and the French Revolution established a new image of man - suddenly man was to be free and equal! Technology, art and society made unimagined progress. The modern world of the West came into being.
But how did George Washington and Marie Antoinette experience these revolutionary years? What did Goethe and Schiller risk, what did circumnavigators and pioneers of aviation dream of, what did Kant and Napoleon struggle with? In a rousing tour d'horizon, this book follows prominent life paths that often crossed in amazing ways; it tells of friends and enemies, adventures and innovations, triumph and failure. In many key moments, it is possible to experience how the social foundations and values that still shape our world today were formed in Germany, England, France and the USA, which was just coming into being, and how they must always be renegotiated.

"Progress, told like a serialised novel that you don't want to put down."
Christian Schröder, Der Tagesspiegel.