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In this study Dominick LaCapra addresses the ongoing concern with the application of theory - namely that of literary studies and linguistics - to contemporary historical research and analysis. History and Reading is an attempt to address the concerns of those scholars who either resist theoretical discussions or disavow the use of interdisciplinary study. LaCapra begins with an extensive discussion of the problem of reading and interpretation as it relates to the understanding of history. The focus then moves to two classic texts that serve as case studies: Alexis de Tocqueville's "Old RTgime and the French Revolution" and Michel Foucault's "Folie et dTraison: Histoire de la folie + l'+ge classique" (partially translated into English as "Madness and Civilization"). In the final chapter, LaCapra deals with the problem of rethinking and reconfiguring French studies, suggesting how this discipline could itself profit from the theoretical innovations for which it has been so important a conduit in the last few decades. LaCapra offers sensitive readings of Tocqueville and Foucault, authors who present vastly different narrative strategies and modes of analysis. Looking at these and other theorists whose work addresses the writing and understanding of history, he considers how their distinctive textual practices have transformed standard modes of interpretation and analysis. A distinguished and widely respected European historian, LaCapra offers a sophisticated consideration of how to combine textual analysis with traditional historical practices, and shows how this practice can be brought to bear on French studies and help to shape its future directions

Literature and history. --- History --- Historiography --- History and literature --- History and poetry --- Poetry and history --- Methodology. --- Tocqueville, Alexis de, --- Foucault, Michel, --- France --- Study and teaching. --- Historiography. --- Folie et deraison (Foucault, Michel) --- Ancien regime et la Revolution (Tocqueville, Alexis de) --- Old Regime and the Revolution (Tocqueville, Alexis de) --- Old Regime and the French Revolution (Tocqueville, Alexis de) --- Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique (Foucault, Michel)

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We have grown accustomed to the idea that scientific theories are embedded in their place and time. But in the case of the development of mathematical physics in eighteenth-century France, the relationship was extremely close. In Before Voltaire, J.B. Shank shows that although the publication of Isaac Newton's Principia in 1687 exerted strong influence, the development of calculus-based physics is better understood as an outcome that grew from French culture in general. Before Voltaire explores how Newton's ideas made their way not just through the realm of French science, but into the larger world of society and culture of which Principia was an intertwined part. Shank also details a history of the beginnings of calculus-based mathematical physics that integrates it into the larger intellectual currents in France at the time, including the Battle of the Ancients and the Moderns, the emergence of wider audiences for science, and the role of the newly reorganized Royal Academy of Sciences. The resulting book offers an unprecedented cultural history of one the most important and influential elements of Enlightenment science.

Mechanics --- Mechanics --- Mechanics, Analytic --- Mechanics, Analytic --- History --- History --- History --- History --- Newton, Isaac, --- Newton, Isaac, --- Influence. --- Académie royale des sciences (France) --- Académie Royale des Sciences. --- Enlightenment science. --- Issac Newton. --- Newtonian mechanics. --- Old Regime France. --- Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica. --- analytical mechanics. --- infinitesimal calculus. --- mathematical physics. --- rational mechanics.

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L'abbé de Saint-Pierre, connu pour son Projet de paix perpétuelle, a laissé un ensemble bien plus vaste et cohérent d'écrits politiques et moraux jusqu'alors dispersés et partiellement étudiés. Le présent ouvrage, exploitant systématiquement la totalité de l'oeuvre, en propose la complète réévaluation. Dès les premières décennies du XVIIIe siècle, Saint-Pierre promeut une harmonisation artificielle des intérêts, assurée par l'intervention politique et s'affirme, avant Bentham, comme l'un des premiers utilitaristes. Il imagine de substituer à la patrimonialisation, aux recommandations et clientèles qui structuraient la société de son temps et déterminaient l'exercice du pouvoir, une organisation rationnelle, méritocratique et dynamique. ll remplace les valeurs charismatiques fondant la perfection chrétienne ou la grandeur aristocratique par les objectifs de l'utilité et du bien public. Pour ce déiste conciliant moralité et religion, la recherche du salut par une piété active doit favoriser la justice et la bienfaisance. Selon lui, seul le pouvoir indivisible d'un monarque informé par des élites compétentes peut réaliser des réformes nécessaires au bonheur du plus grand nombre. Promoteur d'un État de bien-être imposé autoritairement, il représente, avant le plein essor de l'économie politique, des sciences camérales et de la doctrine des physiocrates, une dimension méconnue des Lumières politiques que cette étude entend souligner.---The Abbé de Saint-Pierre, best known for his Project for Perpetual Peace, in fact left a much larger and more coherent body of political and moral writing, but it has been only partially studied. This book, the first systematic exploration of his entire corpus, offers a complete re-evaluation of this important author's contributions to the Enlightenment. From the first decades of the 18th century, Saint-Pierre set forth a pioneering vision of politics as the harmonization of interests, anticipating Bentham as a utilitarian. He imagines replacing the system of inherited power and clientele networks which structured Old Regime society and determined the exercise of power under absolutism, with a rationalized, meritocratic and dynamic organization. He argued for the political values of social utility and public good to take the place of the Christian ideals of perfection and the aristocratic ideals of personal charisma. As a deist seeking to reconcile morality and religion, Saint-Pierre argued that the search for salvation through active piety must also promote social justice and beneficence -- and that only the indivisible power of a rationalized monarch, informed by competent elites, could carry out the reforms necessary to yield a government which would produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Saint-Pierre, thus, provided among the first arguments for an imposed welfare state, well before the sources more frequently associated with that idea -- political economists, cameralists and the physiocrats.

Monarchy. --- Executive power. --- Political science --- Kings and rulers --- Ministerial responsibility. --- Rule of law. --- Common good. --- Decision making. --- Duties. --- Saint-Pierre, Charles Irénée Castel de, --- Monarchie éclairée --- utilitarisme --- state power --- history of political thought --- early modern monarchy --- absolutism --- Lumières politiques --- Old Regime --- cameralism --- Enlightenment --- utilitarianism --- abbé de Saint-Pierre --- political economy --- Ancients v Moderns --- despotisme éclairé

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The example of Old Regime France provides a source for many of the ideas about capitalism, modernization, and peasant protest that concern social scientists today. Hilton Root challenges traditional assumptions and proposes a new interpretation of the relationship between state and society.

Peasants --- Land tenure --- History. --- France --- Politics and government. --- Agrarian tenure --- Feudal tenure --- Freehold --- Land ownership --- Land question --- Landownership --- Tenure of land --- Peasantry --- Land use, Rural --- Real property --- Land, Nationalization of --- Landowners --- Serfdom --- Agricultural laborers --- Rural population --- Marks (Medieval land tenure) --- Villeinage --- Land tenure. --- 17th century europe. --- capitalism. --- capitalist development. --- european agriculture. --- european bourgeois. --- european government. --- european history. --- european monarchy. --- european political economics. --- european politics books. --- european state building. --- french bureaucracy. --- french economy. --- french government. --- french history. --- french revolution. --- french war. --- modernization. --- old regime france. --- political science. --- social choice. --- social science professors. --- social scientists books. --- social scientists. --- state and society.

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Beginning with the simple question, "Why did audiences grow silent?" Listening in Paris gives a spectator's-eye view of opera and concert life from the Old Regime to the Romantic era, describing the transformation in musical experience from social event to profound aesthetic encounter. James H. Johnson recreates the experience of audiences during these rich decades with brio and wit. Woven into the narrative is an analysis of the political, musical, and aesthetic factors that produced more engaged listening. Johnson shows the gradual pacification of audiences from loud and unruly listeners to the attentive public we know today. Drawing from a wide range of sources--novels, memoirs, police files, personal correspondence, newspaper reviews, architectural plans, and the like--Johnson brings the performances to life: the hubbub of eighteenth-century opera, the exuberance of Revolutionary audiences, Napoleon's musical authoritarianism, the bourgeoisie's polite consideration. He singles out the music of Gluck, Haydn, Rossini, and Beethoven as especially important in forging new ways of hearing. This book's theoretical edge will appeal to cultural and intellectual historians in many fields and periods.

Music --- Music appreciation. --- Music appreciation --- Music, Dance, Drama & Film --- Music History & Criticism, General --- Analytical guides (Music) --- Appreciation of music --- Musical appreciation --- Musical analysis --- Music and society --- History and criticism. --- Social aspects. --- History and criticism --- Social aspects --- Analysis, appreciation --- Analytical guides --- Appreciation --- Instruction and study --- 18th century opera. --- aesthetic factors. --- attentive audience. --- beethoven. --- concert life. --- concerts. --- cultural history. --- engaged listening. --- entertainment. --- gluck. --- gradual pacification. --- haydn. --- hearing. --- imitation. --- intellectual history. --- jacobin ideology. --- musical authoritarianism. --- musical experience. --- napoleon. --- old regime. --- opera. --- paris. --- polite consideration. --- political factors. --- public concerns. --- respectability. --- revolutionary audiences. --- romantic era. --- romanticism. --- rossini. --- social duty. --- studies on the history of society and culture. --- thermidor.