A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (Oxford Ed.)

Dickens' second historical novel, which he considered the best story he had written, provides a highly charged examination of human suffering and human sacrifice. Private experience and public history parallel one another as the political activities and personal responsibilities of the novel's characters, during the French Revolution, draw them into the Paris of the Terror.

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This book is featured on The Book Club with Michael Knowles, PragerU's show dedicated to the great books of Western civilization. In this episode, Michael Knowles is joined by PragerU's Allen Estrin to explore the novel's stark contrasts of fate versus free will, tyranny and excess, and life and death, and to ask what Dickens' account of the French Revolution says about American society today.

📺 Watch the episode: Allen Estrin — A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Read Dickens' own favorite among his novels, and discover why its portrait of a society caught between tyranny and excess still feels startlingly relevant today.