The Ancien Regime Book

This little volume reads very much like a grad school culminating project. "What does 'Ancien Regime' mean? Is it specific to France, or does it refer to a larger cultural epoch? Define the term both in historical and modern contexts. Things to consider: major shifts in historical understanding of the period, especially in regards to economic, social, and political characteristics; if and how the term was used in the Revolutionary period compared to later historical scholarship. Include Marxists. Final essay should be ~100 pages plus endnotes."

Yet this is not a bad thing. It is, in fact, a very useful little book, in part a summary of centuries of scholarship, in part a kind of super-annotated bibliography. Not the final word on any one point, but a useful gloss over major aspects of the term and a brisk review of the changing scholarly perspectives of a ridiculously complicated period in French (and European) history.

***an addendum: this book hovered on the shelf for a long time, despite being an obvious starting point in my research. every time i would pick it up i would get annoyed and put it down again. it was only recently that i realized this was because of the cover: the main font in the title is horrible, the tittles on the "i"s look like they are floating in another dimension, it hurt my eyes every time i looked at it. that's what seven years in book production gets you: the ability to be put off a book simply by its font.**