Readings in Western Civilization, Volume 7: The Old Regime and the French Revolution

University of Chicago Readings in Western Civilization #7

by Keith Michael Baker (Editor)

The University of Chicago Readings in Western Civilization (nine volumes) makes available to students and teachers a unique selection of primary documents, many in new translations. These readings, prepared for the highly praised Western civilization sequence at the University of Chicago, were chosen by an outstanding group of scholars whose experience teaching that course spans almost four decades. Each volume includes rarely anthologized selections as well as standard, more familiar texts; a bibliography of recommended parallel readings; and introductions providing background for the selections. Beginning with Periclean Athens and concluding with twentieth-century Europe, these source materials enable teachers and students to explore a variety of critical approaches to important events and themes in Western history.

Individual volumes provide essential background reading for courses covering specific eras and periods. The complete nine-volume series is ideal for general courses in history and Western civilization sequences.

Genres: History, School, Politics, France, Philosophy

476 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1987

About the author

Keith Baker is professor of early modern European history and, by courtesy, of French and Italian, J.E. Wallace Sterling Professor in the Humanities, and Jean-Paul Gimon Director of the France-Stanford Center. His research focuses on intellectual history and the history of political culture, and on the cultural and political origins of the Englightenment and the French Revolution. He is the author of Condorcet. From Natural Philosophy to Social Mathematics and Inventing the French Revolution. Prof. Baker has held a Guggenheim Fellowship, has been named Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques, and is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Philosophical Society. In 2014, he won the American Historical Association's lifetime achievement award.

Reviews

[a]

Nice and comprehensive primary source reader with a tocquevillian bent. Lots of good stuff in here; Loyseau's 17th century justification of the ancien regime's estates which dives into philosophy to say that ennoblement is a fiction because you can't turn non-being into being; Turgot's plan for government which is filled to the brim w/enlightenment thought of the day; Le Chapelier opposing first unions and then political clubs on good liberal principles; debates on the political clubs and the fate of the king (most exciting and interesting part imo); then also a nice Robespierre speech, Babeuf, lots of declarations that really convey the different tones of different governments, different legal bits and pieces that also give real sense of how things are run at different times, also nice eyewitness journalistic excerpts, later Burke's serene conservative liberalism, De Maistre surprisingly not a fire breathing reactionary but someone who shares 99% of the enlightenment premises of most of the french revolutionaries, learned a lot from this, and got a lot to chew on -- also just the shared general picture of the world and basic vocabulary and concepts and categories that everyone has in this book and how the historical movement flows through

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

The reader has a wide variety of documents, though lacks a proper separation between them. Another issue is that there are multiple obscure references in the reader that have no footnotes to accompany them. Overall it's a great reader, though it could use more readings from the enlightenment, and a little less repetitive primary sources.

[Luigi Berinde · Rating 4 out of 5]

YES — I read this entire textbook for my history class. Every. Single. Page. So I will be putting it down in my Goodreads.

It was pretty good! Very industrial and boring looking, but amazing primary sources (or so I think). The summaries were also good. Author left out some iconic quotes from some people which was weird but not too important?

[Mia · Rating 3 out of 5]

don’t @ me

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty comprehensive collection of primary documents.