Author : Harold A. Ellis
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1501745735
Total Pages : 301 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (17 download)
Book Synopsis Boulainvilliers and the French Monarchy by : Harold A. Ellis
Download or read book Boulainvilliers and the French Monarchy written by Harold A. Ellis and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-15 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Suspicious of the French monarchy, and scornful of the new elites that served it, Henri de Boulainvilliers (1658–1722) has been considered one of the Old Regime's paradigmatic aristocratic reactionaries, a founder of modern racist theory. Some scholars, however, have admired his "constitutionalism" and judged him a progenitor of an enlightened aristocratic liberalism now commonly held to have been a major force in shaping the ideology of the French Revolution. In a close contextual study of the writings of this enigmatic, pivotal thinker, Harold A. Ellis persuasively rethinks both images of Boulainvilliers, finding him a controversialist who interpreted French history as a self-consciously political writer seeking to address an emergent political public.