This is a rich and impressive book, in many ways a model for what a revised Ph.D. dissertation can and should be....[It is] a book that not only tells a story in a way not told before but also serves as an important introduction for the nonspecialist to the new school of political history and the way it is being practiced for the study of eighteenth-century France. The tone, meanwhile, in an area marked by especially strong opinions and argumentation, is remarkably
non-polemical....This is a fine book that is also well written and enlivened with numerous examples of individual lawyers and their actions and writings."-Ellery Schalk, American Historical Review
David A. Bell is Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Professor in the Era of North Atlantic Revolutions at Princeton University. He is the author of many books, including Napoleon: A Concise History, Shadows of Revolution: Reflections on France, The Cult of the Nation in France, and The First Total War.