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Political and administrative institutions cannot be understood
unless one knows who is operating them and for whose benefit they
function. In the first volume of this history, Mousnier analyzes
such institutions in light of the prevailing social, economic, and
ideological structures and shows how they shaped life in 17th- and
18th-century France. He traces the changing role of monarchical
government, showing how it emerged over two centuries and why it
failed.
In a society divided by hierarchical social groups, conflicts among
lineages, communities, and districts became inevitable.
Aristocratic disdain, ancestral attachment to privileges, and
autonomous powers looked upon as rights, made civil unrest,
dislocation, and anarchy endemic. Mousnier examines this contention
between classes as they faced each other across the institutional
barriers of education, religion, economic resources, technology,
means of defense and communication, and territorial and family
ties. He shows why a monarchical state was necessary to preserve
order within this fragmented society.
Though it was intent on ensuring the survival of French society and
the public good, the Absolute Monarchy was unable to maintain
security, equilibrium, and cooperation among rival social groups.
Discussing the feeble technology at its disposal and its weak means
of governing, Mousnier points to the causes that brought the state
to the limits of its resources. His comprehensive analysis will
greatly interest students of the ancien regime and comparativists
in political science and sociology as well.
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