This book reasserts the importance of the French Revolution to an understanding of the nature of modern European politics and social life. Scholars currently argue that the French Revolution did not significantly contribute to the development of modern political values. They no longer hold that the study of the Revolution offers any particular insight into the dynamics of historical change. James Livesey contends that contemporary historical study is devalued through this misinterpretation of the French Revolution and offers an alternative approach and a new thesis.
Livesey argues...
This book reasserts the importance of the French Revolution to an understanding of the nature of modern European politics and social life. Scholars...
James Livesey traces the origins of the modern conception of civil society--an ideal of collective life between the family and politics--not to England or France, as many of his predecessors have done, but to the provincial societies of Ireland and Scotland in the eighteenth century. Livesey shows how civil society was first invented as an idea of renewed community for the provincial and defeated elites in the provinces of the British Empire and how this innovation allowed them to enjoy liberty without directly participating in the empire's governance, until the limits of the concept were...
James Livesey traces the origins of the modern conception of civil society--an ideal of collective life between the family and politics--not to Englan...
