Product Description

The Bourgeois Citizen in Nineteenth-Century France analyses the process by which class society developed in post-revolutionary France. Focusing on bourgeois men and on their voluntary associations, Carol E. Harrison addresses the construction of class and gender identities. In their gentlemen's clubs, learned societies, musical groups, gardening clubs, and charitable associations, bourgeois Frenchmen defined a social order in which the atomized individuals of revolutionarly law could find places for themselves in reconstituted social groups and hierarchies. The practices of sociability reflected a bourgeois view of society as harmonious rather than torn by conflict. The potentially universal virtues of bourgeois masculinity provided a basis for a consensus that could protect social order from the destructive competitiveness of French political life and the industrializing economy. The sociable interaction of male citizens was the crucial bridge between the destruction of Frances's old regime and the development of a mature industrial class society.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2988323 in Books
• Published on: 1999-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 280 pages

Journal of Modern History
"An outstanding piece of scholarship. It should be obligatory reading for all those interested in the history of nineteenth-century France"

Review
An outstanding piece of scholarship. It should be obligatory reading for all those interested in the history of nineteenth-century France (Journal of Modern History )

There is much to commend in this admirable book. The research is immaculate, and at the same time the findings are presented in an engaging and elegant manner ... As a piece of social history, the book is also superb, recreating the rich, complex, and often quaint practices of the various associations and groups that were active in the three towns (Journal of Modern History )