In pursuit of politics : education and revolution in eighteenth-century France / Adrian O'Connor.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

O'Connor, Adrian, author.

Series:

Studies in modern French history.

Studies in modern French history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Education--France--History--18th century.

Education.

Education--Political aspects--France--History--18th century.

France--History--Revolution, 1789-1799.

France.

France--Politics and government--1789-1799.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 262 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2017.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

This book offers a new interpretation of the debates over education and politics in the early years of the French Revolution. This period witnessed a series of amazingly ambitious efforts to reform and reinvent the nation's political institutions, cultural politics, and social order. Deputies, political commentators, and private citizens alike recognized that reinventing French politics and transforming French society would require rethinking the principles and practices of education. The book aims to recapture the dynamism of this polyvalent debate and to flesh out the ambitions and dilemmas that gave it meaning during this most turbulent of historical moments. It traces an ambivalent strain in Enlightenment thought on education, a deep tension at the point of contact between seemingly limitless philosophical possibilities and the apparent limitations imposed by political and social realities. The book analyses the debate over education amid broader concerns about the nature and efficacy of representative government and the nascent idea of "public instruction" from its emergence as a revolutionary ambition through efforts to fulfill the constitutional promise of national education. It argues for a new understanding of "public instruction" as a pedagogical and political ideal and, with that, a revised sense of education's role in regenerating France and in working towards a representative and participatory system of government. The book also focuses on letters and proposals submitted by people affiliated or associated with the schools and related institutions. Finally, it surveys the changes the "education question" took on an explicitly republican form after September 1792.

Contents:

Cover

In pursuit of politics

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Politics: a revolutionary idea and a practical problem

Prologue: the educational "system" of eighteenth-century France

1 Education and an ambivalent Enlightenment

2 National education: promise and paralysis

3 Public instruction: a new pedagogy for a new politics

4 Constitutional principles and concrete proposals: reconsidering Talleyrand and Condorcet on public instruction

5 Revolutionary politics à la plume: the public on education and politics

6 New wine in old bottles? Ancien Régime schools imagine the future

7 Republican instruction: an elusive ideal

Conclusion: Politics: real, pursued, and promised

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 10 Apr 2026).

Includes bibliographical references (pages 240-255) and index.

ISBN:

9781526120588

1526120585

9781526132314

1526132311

9781526120571

1526120577

OCLC:

1114286655