The Contentious French / Charles Tilly.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tilly, Charles, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Demonstrations--France--History.

Demonstrations.

France--Politics and government--1589-1789.

HISTORY / General.

POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Process / General.

SOCIAL SCIENCE / Social Classes.

Local Subjects:

Demonstrations--France--History.

France--Politics and government--1589-1789.

HISTORY / General.

POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Process / General.

SOCIAL SCIENCE / Social Classes.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (470 p.)

Edition:

Reprint 2014

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In a dazzling new interpretation of four hundred years of modern French history, Charles Tilly focuses not on kings and courtiers but on the common people of village and farm buffeted by the inexorable advance of large-scale capitalism and the consolidation of a powerful nation-state. Tilly, author of The Vendée and many other books, chooses the contention of the masses as his medium in painting this vivid picture of the people's growing ability and willingness to fight injustice, challenge exploitation, and claim their own place in the hierarchy of power. Contention is not necessarily disorder. The more we look at contention, says Tilly, the more we discover order created by the rooting of collective action in everyday social life through a continuous process of signaling, negotiation, and struggle. In seventeenth-century France, ordinary people did not know how to demonstrate, rally, or strike, but they had standard procedures for expelling a tax collector, undermining a corrupt official, and shaming moral offenders. By the end of the eighteenth century, French people were experimenting with delegations, public meetings, and popular justice. Through the nineteenth century, with the growth of an industrial proletariat, they developed an extensive repertoire of strikes, demonstrations, and direct attacks on landlords and capitalists, as well as conflicts setting worker against worker. In the twentieth century, scenarios of protest expanded to even larger-scale forms such as mass meetings, electoral campaigns, and broad-based social movements. Rather than arguing these developments in the abstract, The Contentious French provides lively descriptions of real events, with pauses to make sense of their patterns. The result is a view of politics with the common struggle for power at its core and the changing structure of power as its envelope. The Contentious French is bound to be controversial, and therefore required reading for specialists in European history, social movements, and collective action. Its fresh approach will also appeal to students and general readers.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Preface

Contents

Illustrations

1 The Challenge of Popular Struggle

2 Burgundy Battles

3 France over Four Centuries

4 Anjou's Crises

5 Purse, Sword, Loaf, and Cross

6 Toulouse, Languedoc, and Enlightenment France

7 Statemaking, Capitalism, and Contention

8 Flanders from the Revolution to the Great War

9 Revolutions and Social Movements

10 Festivals and Fights in the Ile-de-France

11 Parties, Regimes, and Wars

12 Four Centuries of Struggle

A NOTE ON THE EVIDENCE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Mai 2019)

ISBN:

0-674-43398-X

OCLC:

1013957030