LEADER 03614nam 2200625Ia 450 001 9910785367603321 005 20200520144314.0 010 $a9786612129780 010 $a1-282-25911-3 010 $a1-282-12978-3 010 $a9786612259111 010 $a1-4008-2770-1 024 7 $a10.1515/9781400827701 035 $a(CKB)2670000000057525 035 $a(OCoLC)355669802 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse36393 035 $a(DE-B1597)446525 035 $a(OCoLC)979779349 035 $a(DE-B1597)9781400827701 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL445552 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10284083 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL225911 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC445552 035 $a(EXLCZ)992670000000057525 100 $a20060517d2007 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aur|||||||nn|n 181 $ctxt$2rdacontent 182 $cc$2rdamedia 183 $acr$2rdacarrier 200 10$aBefore the deluge$b[electronic resource] $epublic debt, inequality, and the intellectual origins of the French Revolution /$fMichael Sonenscher 205 $aCourse Book 210 $aPrinceton [NJ] $cPrinceton University Press$dc2007 215 $a1 online resource (x, 415 pages) 311 $a0-691-12499-X 311 $a0-691-14326-9 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. [373]-402) and index. 327 $t Frontmatter -- $tContents -- $tAcknowledgements -- $tIntroduction -- $t1. Facing the Future -- $t2. Montesquieu and the Idea of Monarchy -- $t3. Morality and Politics in a Divided World -- $t4. Industry and Representative Government -- $tConclusion -- $tBibliography -- $tIndex 330 $aEver since the French Revolution, Madame de Pompadour's comment, "Après moi, le déluge" (after me, the deluge), has looked like a callous if accurate prophecy of the political cataclysms that began in 1789. But decades before the Bastille fell, French writers had used the phrase to describe a different kind of selfish recklessness--not toward the flood of revolution but, rather, toward the flood of public debt. In Before the Deluge, Michael Sonenscher examines these fears and the responses to them, and the result is nothing less than a new way of thinking about the intellectual origins of the French Revolution. In this nightmare vision of the future, many prerevolutionary observers predicted that the pressures generated by modern war finance would set off a chain of debt defaults that would either destroy established political orders or cause a sudden lurch into despotic rule. Nor was it clear that constitutional government could keep this possibility at bay. Constitutional government might make public credit more secure, but public credit might undermine constitutional government itself. Before the Deluge examines how this predicament gave rise to a widespread eighteenth-century interest in figuring out how to establish and maintain representative governments able to realize the promise of public credit while avoiding its peril. By doing so, the book throws new light on a neglected aspect of modern political thought and on the French Revolution. 606 $aHISTORY$zEurope$zFrance 606 $aWar$vCauses 606 $aHISTORY / Europe / France$2bisacsh 607 $aFrance$xHistory$yRevolution, 1789-1799$xCauses 615 0$aHISTORY 615 0$aWar 615 7$aHISTORY / Europe / France. 676 $a944.04 700 $aSonenscher$b Michael$0249489 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910785367603321 996 $aBefore the deluge$93832330 997 $aUNINA