Professor Wolf focuses on the problems of high politics and war, which intrigued Louis and were his instruments of power. Without ignoring the fact that Louis was also a son, husband, lover, and father--as well as king--he gives us a striking new image of Louis as "soldier administrator" and a vivid, accurate picture of the king's impact on the military machine after 1691, his part in the drama of war and in the emergence of a new Europe.