What was the purpose of Les Origines de la France contemporaine?

Hippolyte Taine wrote Les Origines de la France contemporaine ("The Origins of Contemporary France") to investigate the root causes of the political instability and national sickness he believed led to France's defeat by Germany in the 1870–71 war.1

The purpose of this monumental historical analysis was to identify the sources of France's plight by examining its past. Taine argued that the country's primary fault was excessive centralization, which he claimed originated during the ancien régime and was subsequently intensified by the French Revolution. Developing a perspective similar to that of Edmund Burke, Taine sought to demonstrate that the Revolution did not promote liberty but instead transferred absolute power into even more illiberal hands.1