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It is my hope that this publication of a "lost" work by Galiani
will interest scholars of many nations and disciplines. Few writers
could make a more compelling claim upon such a cosmopolitan
audience. An Italian with deep roots in his homeland, Galiani
achieved celebrity in the salons of Paris. An ecclesiastic, his
most notable concerns were worldly, to say the least. An erudite
classicist, Galiani was passionately concerned about economics and
technology. A philosophe and ostensibly something of a subversive,
he was enthralled by power and he served for many years as a
government agent and adviser at home and abroad. Galiani embodied
many of the preoccupations and paradoxes of the Enlightenment. His
torians and literary analysts devoted to the study of the lumie'res
through out Europe are bound to find Galiani's work important. In
recent years there has been an efflorescence of interest in the
history of political economy and its relationship not only to the
history of ideas but also to the history of social structure,
economic development, admin istrative institutions, collective
mentalities, and political mobilization. Galiani's work helps to
crystalize many of these connections which scholarly specialization
has tended to obscure. Galiani had a leading voice in one of the
most significant debates in the eighteenth century on the
implications of radical economic, social, and institutional
change."
It is my hope that this publication of a "lost" work by Galiani
will interest scholars of many nations and disciplines. Few writers
could make a more compelling claim upon such a cosmopolitan
audience. An Italian with deep roots in his homeland, Galiani
achieved celebrity in the salons of Paris. An ecclesiastic, his
most notable concerns were worldly, to say the least. An erudite
classicist, Galiani was passionately concerned about economics and
technology. A philosophe and ostensibly something of a subversive,
he was enthralled by power and he served for many years as a
government agent and adviser at home and abroad. Galiani embodied
many of the preoccupations and paradoxes of the Enlightenment. His
torians and literary analysts devoted to the study of the lumie'res
through out Europe are bound to find Galiani's work important. In
recent years there has been an efflorescence of interest in the
history of political economy and its relationship not only to the
history of ideas but also to the history of social structure,
economic development, admin istrative institutions, collective
mentalities, and political mobilization. Galiani's work helps to
crystalize many of these connections which scholarly specialization
has tended to obscure. Galiani had a leading voice in one of the
most significant debates in the eighteenth century on the
implications of radical economic, social, and institutional
change."
The interpretation of the French Revolution has long been the most
contentious issue in French history. How the Revolution should be
remembered has been the focus of debates concerned as much with
France's future as with its past. Kaplan both reviews these debates
and reconstructs - in sometimes hilarious detail - events leading
up to the official commemoration. Bringing to bear the skills of
the archival historian and the ethnographer, he masterfully
explains how a particular political culture attempts to come to
terms with its past. As he sketches a provocative picture of
politics in France today, he has much to say about more general
relationships between memory and collective identity, history and
politics. Farewell, Revolution is based on massive research,
including interviews with leading players on the French cultural
and political scene. Kaplan vividly describes the evolution not
only of the bicentennial celebration in Paris but also of regional
festivities and commemorative activities among the French
Communists.
In 1993, Editions Fayard published Steven Laurence Kaplan's
controversial history of the bicentennial commemoration of the
French Revolution. Here available in English is one of the most
polemical parts of that work, Kaplan's account of the contemporary
debates over the meaning of the Revolution. Farewell, Revolution:
The Historians' Feud, France, 1789/1989 traces the impact of the
historians' bitter quarrel, from Parisian academic circles to the
public arenas of the bicentennial celebration. In the complementary
work, Farewell, Revolution: Disputed Legacies, France, 1789/1989,
Kaplan chronicles both the ceremonies and the controversies that
marked the bicentennial. The present volume considers in intimate
detail the roles played in those arguments by three of France's
most influential historians: Francois Furet, Pierre Chaunu, and
Michel Vovelle. The apparent "king" of the bicentennial, Furet
attempted to set and enforce the terms of the debate. Chaunu was
the prominent spokesman of those who condemned the Revolution as
the wellspring of all that is decadent in modern French culture.
While officially entrusted with overseeing the historical accuracy
of the commemoration, Vovelle attempted to rally a broad-based
coalition against Chaunu and the conservatives. As he reenacts the
feud, Kaplan invites a reassessment of the relationship between the
writing of history and the practice of politics. His book suggests
that the charged relationship between history and politics that
enlivened the bicentennial may be the Revolution's most enduring
legacy.
Eighteen scholars from both sides of the Atlantic look at the
question of work across three centuries of French history.
Representing both younger and older generations, they move beyond
traditional disciplinary boundaries in order to consider human
labor as it was actually performed and to determine what it has
meant to specific groups and individuals at particular historical
moments. This book proposes some fundamental revisions in the
history of work which will have important implications for our
understanding of social, political, economic, and cultural
developments not only in France but throughout Europe.
Dependence upon grain deeply marked every aspect of life in
eighteenth-century France. Steven Kaplan focuses upon this
dependence at the point where it placed the greatest strain on the
state, the society, and the individual-on the daily supply of grain
and flour that furnished the staff of life. He reconstructs the
history of provisioning in pre-industrial Paris and provides a
comprehensive view of a culture shaped by the subsistence
imperative. Who were the agents of the provisioning trade? What
were their commercial practices? What sorts of relations did they
maintain with each other? How did the authorities regulate their
business? To answer these questions, Professor Kaplan combed the
archives and libraries of France. He maps out the elementary
structures of the trade and shows how they were transformed as a
result of cultural and political as well as commercial and
technological changes. In rich ethnographic detail he evokes the
dayto-day life of merchants, millers, bakers, brokers, and market
officials. He shows how flour superseded grain and how the millers
overtook the merchants in the provisioning process. He explores the
tension between the suppliers' need for freedom and the consumers'
need for security. Even as he weaves the intricate patterns of life
inside and outside the marketplace he never loses sight of the
immense interests at stake: the stability and legitimacy of the
government, the durability of the social structure, and the
survival of the people.
Steven Laurence Kaplan reconstructs and analyzes the loud and
bitter arguments over the meaning of the French Revolution which
have consumed French intellectuals in recent years. Kaplan recounts
the contemporary debates over the meaning of the Revolution,
tracing the impact of the historians' bitter quarrel, from Parisian
academic circles to the public arenas of the bicentennial
celebration. He considers the roles played in those arguments by
three of France's most influential historians: Francois Furet,
Pierre Chaunu, and Michel Vovelle. In 1993, Editions Fayard
published Steven Laurence Kaplan's controversial history of the
bicentennial commemoration of the French Revolution. Here available
in English is one of the most polemical parts of that work,
Kaplan's account of the contemporary debates over the meaning of
the Revolution. Farewell, Revolution: The Historians' Feud, France,
1789/1989 traces the impact of the historians' bitter quarrel, from
Parisian academic circles to the public arenas of the bicentennial
celebration. Kaplan considers in intimate detail the roles played
in those arguments by three of France's most influential
historians: Francois Furet, Pierre Chaunu, and Michel Vovelle. As
he reenacts the feud, Kaplan invites a reassessment of the
relationship between the writing of history and the practice of
politics. His book suggests that the charged relationship between
history and politics that enlivened the bicentennial may be the
Revolution's most enduring legacy.
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