The Making of a Fiscal-Military State in Post-Revolutionary France

Explains how the French state and its fiscal system were transformed in the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1789.

Jerome Greenfield (Author)

9781108839679, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 1 September 2022

300 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.3 cm, 0.63 kg

'Jerome Greenfield's study provides a lucid account of the ways in which France created a resilient modern fiscal state, while successive regimes struggled in their attempts to establish a stable political system in the aftermath of French Revolution.' Joel Felix, University of Reading

Drawing on a wide range of archival and published documents, this book explains how the French Revolution of 1789 transformed the French state and its fiscal system, and how further reforms in the nineteenth century created a durable, post-revolutionary state. Instead of presenting the nineteenth-century French state as primarily the creation of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic era, as most scholars have done, Jerome Greenfield emphasises the importance of counter-revolution after 1815 in establishing a stable, durable state, capable of surviving revolutions in 1830 and 1848 intact. The years 1815–1870 thus marked a crucial period in the development of the French state, not least in stimulating the economic interventionism for which it become notorious and facilitating the resurgence of France as a great power after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo.

List of figures
List of tables
Acknowledgements
1. The nineteenth-century French state and its rivals
2. The revolutionary quest for fiscal stability, 1789–1799
3. Developing a post-revolutionary fiscal politics, 1799–1814
4. Recasting the fiscal-military system, 1814–1821
5. The resurgence of French power, 1821–1830
6. The 1830 Revolution and the limits of fiscal reform
7. The Ascent of the interventionist Orleanist state, 1830–1848
8. The rise and fall of austerity, 1848–1856
9. Reaching the limits of the fiscal-military system, 1856–1871
10. The triumph of the notables
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], European history [HBJD]