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"Bell, David Avrom"
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The cult of the nation in France : inventing nationalism, 1680-1800
In a work of lucid prose and striking originality, Bell offers the first comprehensive survey of patriotism and national sentiment in early modern France, and shows how the dialectical relationship between nationalism and religion left a complex legacy that still resonates in debates over French national identity today.
eBook
Shadows of revolution : reflections on France, past and present
\"Renowned historian, essayist, and journalist David A. Bell has long made France and its history the subject of his scholarly gaze and the object of his enduring affection. Shadows of Revolution : Reflections on France, Past and Present gathers together his writing, composed over a period of more than 25 years, into a single volume. As the title of this collection suggests, Bell views much of French history through the lens of the Revolutionary era. Within a space of a dozen years, from Bastille to Bonaparte, the country experimented with and experienced every form of governance, creating in the process, as Bell puts it, 'the most intense political laboratory the world had ever known.' The Revolution remains the country's defining era, delineating its sense of identity and overshadowing the events that followed it. Yet another, Bell argues, is the Vichy period and World War Two--France's dark night of the soul--with whose legacies the country continues to contend. These two moments of violent and transformative upheaval may dominate French history, but as this collection and Bell's observational powers reveal, the full range of topics involving France is endlessly rich and diverse. Divided into eight sections, it connects France's education to its national identity, the Enlightenment to the Revolution and human rights, Napoleon to Victor Hugo, and nineteenth-century anti-Semitism to such recent events such as the riots of 2006, the Arab Spring, and the Charlie Hebdo tragedy. Shadows of Revolution embodies and reflects the endlessly fascinating and entertaining complexity of French history, and shows the ways in which it has shaped world history\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Napoleon : a concise biography
This book provides a concise, accurate, and lively portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte's character and career, situating him firmly in historical context. David Bell emphasizes the astonishing sense of human possibility--for both good and ill--that Napoleon represented. By his late twenties, Napoleon was already one of the greatest generals in European history. At thirty, he had become absolute master of Europe's most powerful country. In his early forties, he ruled a European empire more powerful than any since Rome, fighting wars that changed the shape of the continent and brought death to millions. Then everything collapsed, leading him to spend his last years in miserable exile in the South Atlantic. Bell emphasizes the importance of the French Revolution in understanding Napoleon's career. The revolution made possible the unprecedented concentration of political authority that Napoleon accrued, and his success in mobilizing human and material resources. Without the political changes brought about by the revolution, Napoleon could not have fought his wars. Without the wars, he could not have seized and held onto power. Though his virtual dictatorship betrayed the ideals of liberty and equality, his life and career were revolutionary.
eBook
Napoleon : a very short introduction
\"This Very Short Introduction might prove disappointing to those expecting an introduction to a very short man. Dispelling the myth of Napoleon Bonaparte's short stature, as well as the other rumors and legends, David Bell provides a concise, accurate, and lively portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte's character and career, situating him firmly in historical context.This book emphasizes the astonishing sense of human possibility--for both good and ill--that Napoleon represented. By his late twenties, Napoleon was already one of the greatest generals in European history. At thirty, he had become absolute master of Europe's most powerful country. In his early forties, he ruled a European empire more powerful than any since Rome, fighting wars that changed the shape of the continent and brought death to millions. Then everything collapsed, leading him to spend his last years in miserable exile in the South Atlantic. Bell underscores the importance of the French Revolution in understanding Napoleon's career. The revolution made possible the unprecedented concentration of political authority that Napoleon accrued, and his success in mobilizing human and material resources. Without the political changes brought about by the revolution, Napoleon could not have fought his wars. Without the wars, he could not have seized and held onto power. Though his virtual dictatorship betrayed the ideals of liberty and equality, his life and career were revolutionary\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Napoleon in the Flesh
[...]Sudhir Hazareesingh addresses himself to the way that French liberal thinkers, over the course of the nineteenth century, gradually came to terms with Napoleon and accepted him-at least in part-as one of their own. Hazareesingh's essay is a complement to his recent book The Legend of Napoleon, which demonstrated the survival of a large-scale cult of Napoleon's memory from Waterloo through to the time of the second Empire.5 Here, Hazareesingh traces how liberal intellectuals moved from the \"demonization\" of Napoleon at the time of the First Empire itself, through stages of \"humanization\" during the Hundred Days, \"liberalization\" with the publication of the Memorial in the 182Os, \"mythologization\" with the dramatic ceremony of the retour des cendres in 1840, and finally \"historicization,\" under the pen of the politician and historian Adolphe Thiers between 1845 and 1862. The three essays-as well as the larger book projects of Morrissey, Semmel and Hazareesingh-are part of an exciting new trend in the scholarship around Napoleon. [...]quite recently, this scholarship tended, often unconsciously, to endorse the man's own judgment of himself as an absolutely exceptional being who stood, in important ways, outside of history. Work by Michael Broers and Isser Woloch, among others, has transformed our understanding of the structures of Napoleon's Empire.6 Annie Jourdan, Philip Dwyer and Andy Martin have suggested new ways of setting Napoleon within a broader cultural context.7 Natalie Petiteau and Robert Alexander have begun to reevaluate Napoleon's legacies.8 Steven Englund has produced an important new biography which draws on this work.9 The three essays presented in this issue of MLN form part of this broad project of rediscovery, and take it several steps further.
Journal Article
Canon Wars in Eighteenth-Century France: The Monarchy, the Revolution and the \Grands Hommes de la Patrie\
Bell argues that the cult of great Frenchmen during the 18th century formed an integral part of an ideological program aimed at reinventing the French monarchy. He examines the cult from a new perspective, putting particular focus on a fascinating, almost-forgotten series of texts: printed collective biographies of \"great Frenchmen\" which flowed in profusion from French presses during the 18th century.
Journal Article
Lawyers and politics in eighteenth century Paris (1700-1790)
This thesis studies the role played by members of the Parisian legal profession in political life under the ancien regime and at the beginning of the French Revolution. It focuses on three groups in particular: barristers (avocats), attorneys (procureurs), and law clerks (clercs de la Basoche). After a brief survey of social backgrounds, professional duties and cultural lives, the focus turns to the effective creation of the Parisian Order of Barristers in the years around 1700. Barristers had earlier left their affairs in the hands of magistrates. But, it is argued, relations became strained, and an independent bar association was established, both to uphold the profession's status, and to advance political causes, notably the defense of the current of Catholic thought called Jansenism. Barristers defended Jansenists in sensational printed legal briefs, which were immune from censorship. When the crown tried to punish them for these actions, they successfully protected themselves by going on strike. They also staged strikes to support the sovereign courts' opposition to royal policies, and to protect their own symbolic prerogatives. While barristers thus enjoyed a degree of autonomy, attorneys remained enveloped in a traditional, confining corporate structure. By mid-century, barristers, thanks in large part to this autonomy, emerged as the leading polemical writers in the struggle over the rights of the crown. But their very success attracted into the profession men who sought to use this protected platform to advance more \"enlightened\" causes. For a time, it is argued, the leadership managed to contain these newcomers. However, during the political chaos of the Maupeou Crisis (1771-74), the leaders withdrew from the bar, leaving the field to their opponents, who used the opportunity to introduce a flamboyant new style of legal practice, and theories of advocacy which exalted reason and sentiment above traditional jurisprudential learning. The Order never recovered its previous authority. The thesis ends with a discussion of the participation of barristers and law-clerks in the \"pre-Revolution,\" and the 1790 decision by the Constituant Assembly to abolish the Order alongside more traditional corporations, thus ending its professional monopoly.
Dissertation