Books by James B. (Georgetown University Collins

This new edition of James Collins's acclaimed textbook has been revised throughout, incorporating the extensive recent scholarship on the French state. It examines the recent debates on 'absolutism'; presents fresh interpretations of the Fronde and of French society in the eighteenth century; and includes a new chapter on Louis XIV.

This book uses the Breton experience to address two fundamental historiographical issues: the meaning of absolutism and the nature of early-modern French society. Professor Collins's main endeavour is to combine social and political/institutional history, so long separated in works on this field.