State and Society in Eighteenth-Century France : : A Study in Political Power and Popular Revolution in Languedoc. Revised and Updated Edition / / Stephen Miller.

• Superior document: Historical Materialism Book Series ; 263
• VerfasserIn: Miller, Stephen,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden ;, Boston : : Brill,, [2022]; ©2023
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Historical Materialism Book Series ; 263.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (256 pages)

Taking the province of Languedoc as a microcosm for France as a whole, this comprehensively researched riveting narrative demonstrates the way in which the class relations enforced by the absolutist state brought about the revolutionary upheaval of 1789.

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.

Table of Contents

Intro -- ‎Contents -- ‎Figures and Tables -- ‎Introduction -- ‎Chapter 1. The Peasant Economy, Seigneurial Regime, and State -- ‎Chapter 2. The Rewards of Royal Service -- ‎Chapter 3. Crown and Nobility in a Time of Financial Difficulties: Royal Policy 1758-89 -- ‎Chapter 4. Revolutionary Politics 1788-91: Despotism and Equality -- ‎Chapter 5. Popular Revolts, Political Authority and the Revolutionary Dynamic, 1789-93 -- ‎Chapter 6. Politics and Class, 1792-99: Radicalism, Terror, and Repression -- ‎Conclusion -- ‎Appendix -- ‎Bibliography -- ‎Index.