This innovative study analyzes Flora Tristan's correspondence with militant republicans, socialists and democrats active in the July Monarchy. It examines the role of the letter in fostering links at a time of a significant growth of literacy and search for citizenship by the disenfranchised. Combining a gendered analysis of socialist movements with a textual analysis of letters it illustrates the vitality of political tensions in Tristan's communications and the sophistication of political networks on the eve of the 1848 revolution.

Fourteen wide-ranging chapters by distinguished international scholars treat key aspects of the rapidly changing political and cultural scene in France from the First Republic, through the Consulate and Empire to the death of Louis XVIII in 1824. Falling into two interlinked parts, this collection of original essays explores new developments as well as continuities characterising the transition between the eighteenth century and the nineteenth. It includes chapters on feminism, politics and theatre, elections and plebiscites, revolution and counter-revolution, patronage, universities and...