Sarah Maza
Private Lives and Public Affairs
The Causes Célèbres of Prerevolutionary France
$25.95, £17.95 paperback
9780520201637
Available Now
Free online edition (eScholarship)--available only to University of California faculty, staff, and students (List of public titles)
From 1770 to 1789 a succession of highly publicized cases riveted the attention of the French public. Maza argues that the reporting of these private scandals had a decisive effect on the way in which the French public came to understand public issues in the years before the Revolution.
"Maza is thorough and convincing. The most fascinating part of this brilliantly argued book concerns the whole idea of how public opinion is first formed in a country that is politically mature but lacking effective means of mass communication."—Sebastain Faulks, Literary Review
"A sophisticated analysis of the development of prerevolutionary political culture based on an examination of nontraditional sources. . . . This is an important work for revolutionary historians."—Choice
"A pleasure to read . . . . Like the eighteenth-century barristers who penned the best-selling briefs, [Maza] finds ways both to entertain her audience and to start readers thinking in broad terms."—American Historical Review"
"A sophisticated analysis of the development of prerevolutionary political culture based on an examination of nontraditional sources. . . . This is an important work for revolutionary historians."—Choice
"A pleasure to read . . . . Like the eighteenth-century barristers who penned the best-selling briefs, [Maza] finds ways both to entertain her audience and to start readers thinking in broad terms."—American Historical Review"
Co-winner of the David Pinckney Prize, Society for French Historical Studies
European History Bestsellers
