Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

History France

Nobles in Nineteenth-Century France

The Practice of Inegalitarianism

by (author) David Higgs

Publisher
Johns Hopkins University Press
Initial publish date
Dec 2019
Category
France, History & Theory
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781421432090
    Publish Date
    Dec 2019
    List Price
    $61.95

Add it to your shelf

Where to buy it

Description

Originally published in 1987. David Higgs's Nobles in Nineteenth-Century France: The Practice of Inegalitarianism provides a history of the nobility against the backdrop of changing French political conditions following the French Revolution. Since Jean Juarès, the influential historian of the French Revolution, many writers have argued that the French Revolution marked the political triumph of a capitalist bourgeoisie over a landed aristocracy. However, beginning with Alfred Cobban, some historians began to question this account by focusing on the continued presence of the nobility in France. This book contributes to this body of work by giving a panorama of the French nobility and three detailed case studies of noble families; the author then concludes with an examination of the nobility in political life, the church, and the private sphere. Professor Higgs finds that French nobles changed with their century, but given their small numbers in the national population, they maintained a grossly disproportionate presence in politics, in culture, among the wealthiest landowners, and in economic life.

About the author

David Higgs was a professor of history at the University of Toronto. He specialized in social history, political history, queer studies, and cultural history in the Atlantic world. He also authored Ultraroyalism in Toulouse: From Its Origins to the Revolution of 1830.

David Higgs' profile page

Other titles by