The Crisis of the Absolute Monarchy

From the Old Regime to the French Revolution
Erscheinungsjahr 2013
ISBN: 978-0-19-726538-3
Verlag: Hurst & Co.

Buch, Englisch, Band 184, 350 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 726 g

Reihe: Proceedings of the British Academy

For generations of historians, 1789 was a defining moment in world history and it has been said to mark, amongst other things, the triumph of the bourgeoisie, the birth of modernity, the rise of nationalism or even the invention of ideology. To explain an event of such magnitude it was understandable that historians should seek no less portentous explanations of its origins and that factors such as the rise of capitalism, class struggle or the impact of the
Enlightenment were cited as the long-term causes of Revolution.
In recent years, however, there has been a preoccupation with the actual course of the Revolution. The prevailing concern with political culture and gender as analytical tools has illuminated developments in Paris and in the French provinces, and has brought to prominence many themes inadequately explored during earlier scholarly generations. Rather less attention is given currently to how France was plunged into revolutionary turmoil, which is now taken largely as a 'given'. The present
collection, by contrast, focuses once again upon the origins of the dramatic events within and beyond France which transformed later eighteenth-century Europe so comprehensively and established the terms of political and social struggle for the next two centuries. It presents a series of up-to-date essays
which, collectively, provide a new interpretation of the origins of the Revolution. Uniquely among recent contributions to the field, this volume transcends national historiographical traditions and includes contributions by leading experts from France, Britain and the United States, giving it a breadth of approach which previous scholarship has lacked.

Zielgruppe

Scholars and students as well general readers interested in the causes and events of the French Revolution.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Swann, Julian

Félix, Joël

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Geschichte der Revolutionen Französische Revolution

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1: Julian Swann: Introduction: The Crisis of the Absolute Monarchy
2: Jean-Philippe Poussou: How, and how not, to use the concept of crisis in the reign of Louis XVI
3: Michael Broers: The End of a Golden Age or the Implosion of a False Absolutism? The Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia from Absolutism to Revolution, 1685-1814
4: Julian Swann: From servant of the king to "idol of the nation": The breakdown of personal monarchy in Louis XVI's France
5: Munro Price: The maréchal de Castries and the pre-revolution
6: Joël Félix: The problem with Necker's Compte Rendu au Roi (1781)
7: Nigel Aston: Necker and aristocratic constitutionalism: the British connection
8: David A. Bell: The Culture of War in Europe, 1750-1815
9: Thomas E. Kaiser: The Austrian Alliance, the Seven Years' War, and the Emergence of a French 'National' Foreign Policy, 1756-1790
10: Hamish Scott: A Model of Conduct from the Age of Chivalry?: Honour, International Decline and the End of the Bourbon Monarchy
11: Olivier Chaline: Franco-British naval rivalry and the crisis of the monarchy (1759-1789)
12: Mike Rapport: 'Complaints Lost in the Wind'. French India and the Crisis of the Absolute Monarchy: a Global Dimension?
13: Guy Rowlands: The Maison militaire du Roi and the disintegration of the Old Regime
14: Michel Figeac: The crisis of the nobility at the twilight of the monarchy
15: Clarisse Coulomb: The making of a bourgeois identity? Urban histories and their historians in eighteenth-century France
16: T.C.W. Blanning: William 'Bill' Doyle and the Origins of the French Revolution

Über Autor(innen)

Edited by Julian Swann, Birkbeck College, and Joël Félix, University of Reading