Description: Drawing on a wide range of archival and published documents, this book explains how the French Revolution of 1789 transformed the French state and its fiscal system, and how further reforms in the nineteenth century created a durable, post-revolutionary state. Instead of presenting the nineteenth-century French state as primarily the creation of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic era, as most scholars have done, Jerome Greenfield emphasises the importance of counter-revolution after 1815 in establishing a stable, durable state, capable of surviving revolutions in 1830 and 1848 intact. The years 1815-1870 thus marked a crucial period in the development of the French state, not least in stimulating the economic interventionism for which it become notorious and facilitating the resurgence of France as a great power after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo.
Brief description: Jerome Greenfield was awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and held a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at King's College London (2017-2020). His articles have been published in numerous journals, including the English Historical Review, the Historical Journal, French Historical Studies, French History, Histoire, Économie et Société and the International History Review.
Review Quotes: 'Jerome Greenfield's study provides a lucid account of the ways in which France created a resilient modern fiscal state, while successive regimes struggled in their attempts to establish a stable political system in the aftermath of French Revolution.' Joel Felix, University of Reading