France in the Enlightenment

A panorama of a whole civilization, a world on the verge of cataclysm, unfolds in this work by Daniel Roche. The text brings the Old Regime to life by showing how its institutions operated and how they were understood by the people who worked within them. Roche begins with a map of space and time, depicting France as a mosaic of overlapping geographical units, with people and goods traversing it to the rhythms of everyday life. He fills this frame with the patterns of rural life, urban culture, and government institutions. In this text the reader sees the 18th-century French "culture of appearances": the organization of ideas, the accoutrements of ordinary people in the folkways of ordinary living - their food and clothing, living quarters, and reading material. Roche shows the reader the 18th-century France of the peasant, the merchant, the noble, the King, from Paris to the provinces, from the public space to the private home. By placing politics and material culture at the heart of historical change, Roche captures the complexity and depth of the Enlightenment.