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Guizot presented the lectures upon which this book is based in 1828 at the Sorbonne where he was professor of history. He provides a survey of European history and culture from its beginnings until the French Revolution. He wants to show what is unique to European “civilisation”, such as feudalism, the rise of the free cities, the centralised monarchies, and revolutions in England and France.
This volume offers what Guizot himself describes as a "philosophic history" of Europe, one which searches for the underlying general causes and effects of particular events. Guizot considers European civilization in its broadest senses, encompassing not merely political, economic, and social structures, but also the ideas, faculties, and sentiments of "man himself." Guizot understood a two-way relationship between external conditions affect the inner man, whose moral and intellectual development eventually shapes social and other external conditions.

Originally given as a series of lectures at the Sorbonne, Francois Guizot's History of Civilization in Europe was published to great acclaim in 1828 and is now regarded as a classic in modern historical research. History was particularly influential on Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, and Alexis de Tocqueville. Tocqueville, in fact, requested that a copy of History be sent to him when he arrived in the United States.

In response to the reactionary arguments of ultra-royalists, Francois Guizot (1787-1874) showed that aristocratic social conditions had gone forever. The growth of towns and a market economy had forged the bourgeoisie and created a 'democratic' (or capitalist) society based on individual rights. Yet in France, if not in England, this just and inevitable process had been accompanied by the destruction of local autonomy and the creation of an overpowerful state bureaucracy. The History stresses the role of class conflict as a catalyst for social change, and the energizing effect of Europe's plural traditions (Roman, Christian and Germanic). Such themes, argues Siedentop, deeply influenced the thinking of his three great contemporaries Tocqueville, Marx and Mill, revealing Guizot as both 'the key to an epoch' and 'the most trenchant historical mind of the nineteenth century'.

François Guizot

François Pierre Guillaume Guizot (1787–1874) was a French historian, orator, and statesman. Guizot was a dominant figure in French politics prior to the Revolution of 1848, a conservative liberal who opposed the attempt by King Charles X to usurp legislative power, and worked to sustain a constitutional monarchy following the July Revolution of 1830. He then served the "citizen king" Louis Philippe, as Minister of Education, 1832–37, ambassador to London, Foreign Minister 1840–1847, and finally Prime Minister of France from 19 September 1847 to 23 February 1848. Guizot's influence was critical in expanding public education, which under his ministry saw the creation of primary schools in every French commune. But as a leader of the "Doctrinaires", committed to supporting the policies of Louis Phillipe and limitations on further expansion of the political franchise, he earned the hatred of more left-leaning liberals and republicans through his unswerving support for restricting suffrage to propertied men, advising those who wanted the vote to "enrich yourselves" (enrichissez-vous) through hard work and thrift. As Prime Minister, it was Guizot's ban on the political meetings (called the Paris Banquets, which celebrated the birthday of George Washington) of an increasingly vigorous opposition in January 1848 that catalyzed the revolution that toppled Louis Philippe in February and saw the establishment of the French Second Republic.

Guizot is famous as the originator of the quote "Not to be a republican at 20 is proof of want of heart; to be one at 30 is proof of want of head". This quote has been reworked many times, especially in reference to socialism and liberalism. It has been borrowed by or attributed to many notable figures who lived after Guizot, including Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw, Benjamin Disraeli, Georges Clemenceau, Otto von Bismarck, Aristide Briand, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd George, Wendell Willkie, William J. Casey, and others.