Cultural Origins

 

Core primary readings

• * Beaumarchais, The Marriage of Figaro (entire; onlineLink opens in a new window ; pdfLink opens in a new window ; and copies in library)

Core secondary reading

• PRIORITY: William H. Sewell, Jr. 'The Parisian Promenades' (ch 5) in Capitalism and the Emergence of Civic Equality in Eighteenth-century France (2021)
• IF THE ABOVE 'SEWELL' READING IS NOT YET AVAILABLE, READ INSTEAD: H. Chisick, 'Public Opinion and Political Culture in France During the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century', English Historical Review 470 (2002), 48-77 -- LINK TO BE FOUND ON TALIS READING LISTS UNDER FURTHER READING FOR THIS WEEK.

 

Optional primary readings

· Louis XV, ‘A Royal Reprimand’, Peter Jones, FR in S&P Perspective, pp. 102.

· Lamoignon, ‘Fundamental Laws according to the Parlement of Paris’, pp. 103-104.

· Sieyès, ‘Defining the Nation’, Peter Jones, pp. 104-105.

· Parlement of Paris, ‘Fixing the Framework for the Estates General’, pp. 105-106.

· * Tobias Smollett, Travels through France and Italy, letters iv, v, vi, vii, viii.

· * A. Young, Travels in France in the Years 1787, 1788 and 1789, 17-27 May and 9-24 October 1787 entries

· * "Letter from a Gentleman in Paris to His Friend in London," in A Particular and Authentic Narration of the Life, Examination, Torture, and Execution of Robert Francis Damien [sic], trans. Thomas Jones (London, 1757).

Suggested secondary readings

General

R. Chartier, The Cultural Origins of the French Revolution (1991: esp. intro & concl., chs. 1,2, 7,8)

R. Darnton, The Forbidden Bestsellers of Pre-Revolutionary France (1995), esp. the chapter on public opinion.

K. M. Baker, Inventing the French Revolution (1990), esp. the chapter 'Public Opinion as Political Invention')

W. Sewell, Rhetoric of a Bourgeois Revolution: The Abbé Sieyès and What is the Third Estate? (1994)

H. Chisick, 'Public Opinion and Political Culture in France During the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century', English Historical Review 470 (2002), 48-77.

C. Walton, Policing Public Opinion in the French Revolution (2009), esp. ch 2 'The culture of calumny and honour'.

J. Censer & L. Hunt, Exploring the French Revolution, ch. 1

C. Jones, The Great Nation, ch. 8.

P.R. Campbell, The Origins of the French Revolution (2006)

Gary Kates, The French Revolution. Recent debates and new controversies (Routledge, 1998), especially Colin Jones, ‘Bourgeois revolution revivified: 1789 and social change’ (pp. 87-112), Sarah Maza, ‘Luxury, morality, and social change: why there was no middle-class consciouness in prerevolutionary France’ (pp. 113-130)

William Doyle, Origins of the French Revolution (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999).

Stone, B., The Genesis of the French Revolution. A Global-historical Interpretation (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994).

T. Tackett, Becoming a Revolutionary. The Deputies of the French National Assembly and the emergence of a Revolutionary Culture (1789-1790) (Princeton, 1996).

Emmet Kennedy, A Cultural History of the French Revolution (1989)

Daniel Roche, France in the Enlightenment (1998)

George Lefebvre, The Coming of the French Revolution (Princeton, 1947).

 

Travelling cultures

J. Black, The British Abroad: The Grand Tour in the Eighteenth Century (1992)

J. Black, France and the Grand Tour (2003)

J. Lough, France on the Eve of Revolution: British Travellers Abroad, 1763-88 (1988)

J. Black, Natural and Necessary EnemiesL Anglo-French Relations in the Eighteenth Century (1986)

L. Andries, ‘Paris et l’imaginaire de la ville dans les almanachs français du XVIIIe siècle’, in T.D. Hemming et al., The Secular City (1994)

G. Chabaud, ‘Images de la ville et pratiques du livre: le genre des guides de Paris (XVIIe-XVIIIe)’, RHMC, 45 (1998)

M. Allen (ed.), An English Lady in Paris: The Diary of Frances Anne Crewe (1786) (2006)

B. Dolan, Ladies of the Grand Tour (2001)

D. Roche (ed.), La Ville promise: mobilité et accueil à Paris (fin XVIIe-début XIXe siècle (2000)

D. Roche, Humeurs vagabondes: de la circulation des hommes et de l’utilié des voyages (2003)

J. Grieder, Anglomania in France, 1740-89 (1985)

F. Acomb, Anglophobia in France, 1763-89 (1950)

R. Eagles, Francophilia in English Society, 1748–1815 (2000).

 

Additional primary sources:

Sample of Cahiers de Doleances (1789)

J.L. Ménétra, Journal of My Life (1986)

L.S. Mercier, The picture of Paris (1929), New Pictures of Paris (1800), The New Paris (1962)

A. Young, Travels in France in 1787, 1788 and 1789-1790 (1792).