State and Society in Eighteenth-Century France

A Study in Political Power and Popular Revolution in Languedoc. Revised and Updated Edition
Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-90-04-52610-5
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 263, 248 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 554 g

Reihe: Historical Materialism Book Series

In contrast to the traditional Marxist interpretation of emerging capitalism and a revolutionary bourgeoisie, this book shows that commodified labor, fundamental to the existence of a capitalist bourgeoisie, did not take shape in eighteenth-century France. The mass of the population consisted of peasants and artisans in possession of land and workshops, and embedded in autonomous communities. The old regime bourgeoisie and nobility thus developed within the absolutist state in order to have the political means to impose feudal forms of exploitation on the people. These class relations explain the crisis of 1789 and the revolutionary conflicts of the 1790s.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Miller, Stephen

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte Europäische Regional- & Stadtgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Figures and Tables

Introduction

1 The Peasant Economy, Seigneurial Regime, and State

2 The Rewards of Royal Service

3 Crown and Nobility in a Time of Financial Difficulties: Royal Policy 1758–89

4 Revolutionary Politics 1788–91: Despotism and Equality

5 Popular Revolts, Political Authority and the Revolutionary Dynamic, 1789–93

6 Politics and Class, 1792–99: Radicalism, Terror, and Repression

Conclusion

Appendix

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Stephen Miller, Ph.D. (1999), UCLA, is Professor of History at UAB (the University of Alabama at Birmingham). His many books and articles include The Social History of Agriculture: From the Origins to the Current Crisis (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017).