State and Society in Eighteenth-Century France

A Study in Political Power and Popular Revolution in Languedoc

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Description

In contrast to the traditional Marxist interpretation of emerging capitalism and its revolutionary bourgeoisie, State and Society in Eighteenth-Century France shows that commodified labor, fundamental to the existence of a capitalist bourgeoisie, did not take shape in eighteenth-century France. Through the revolutionary period, the mass of the population consisted of peasants and artisans in possession of land and workshops, all 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, and not those offered in the traditional interpretation, gave rise to the crisis of 1789 and the revolutionary conflicts of the 1790s

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Publication date: November 14, 2023

Table of Contents

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

Reviews

“Those interested in delving into the social and political realities of a large and important province from the late ancien régime into the Revolution will not be disappointed with the richness of evidence Miller has so deftly assembled.”
—Robert A. Schneider, H-France Review
“Miller [...] addresses important questions, and he does so with wide-ranging, imaginative research.”
—Jonathan Dewald, American Historical Review
“[A] detailed and informative scholarly study.”
—James Hanrahan, French Studies

“Those interested in delving into the social and political realities of a large and important province from the late ancien régime into the Revolution will not be disappointed with the richness of evidence Miller has so deftly assembled.”
—Robert A. Schneider, H-France Review

“Miller [...] addresses important questions, and he does so with wide-ranging, imaginative research.”
—Jonathan Dewald, American Historical Review

“[A] detailed and informative scholarly study.”
—James Hanrahan, French Studies

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State and Society in Eighteenth-Century France

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