What does it mean to own something? What sorts of things can be owned, and what cannot? How does one relinquish ownership? What are the boundaries between private and public property? Over the course of a decade, the French Revolution grappled with these questions. Punctuated by false starts, contingencies, and unexpected results, this process laid the foundations of the Napoleonic Code and modern notions of property. As Rafe Blaufarb demonstrates in this ambitious work, the French Revolution remade the system of property-holding that had existed in France before 1789. The revolutionary changes aimed at two fundamental goals: the removal of formal public power from the sphere of property and the excision of property from the realm of sovereignty. The revolutionaries accomplished these two aims by abolishing privately-owned forms of power, such as jurisdictional lordship and venal public office, and by dismantling the Crown domain, thus making the state purely sovereign. This brought about a Great Demarcation: a radical distinction between property and power from which flowed the critical distinctions between the political and the social, state and society, sovereignty and ownership, the public and private. It destroyed the conceptual basis of the Old Regime, laid the foundation of France's new constitutional order, and crystallized modern ways of thinking about polities and societies. By tracing how the French Revolution created a new legal and institutional reality, The Great Demarcation shows how the revolutionary transformation of Old Regime property helped inaugurate political modernity

The Great Demarcation: The French Revolution and the Invention of Modern Property

History

Blaufarb, Rafe

Europe

Oxford University Press

Inhuman Traffick tells for the first time a story of enslavement and freedom that spans the entire Atlantic world. Beginning in 1829 off the west coast of Africa with the recapture of the slave ship Neirsée--previously seized by the British Navy in its efforts to suppress the "inhuman traffick"--and ending with the liberation of the African passengers who had been sold into slavery in the French Caribbean, Rafe Blaufarb puts a human face on the history of the transatlantic slave trade and the efforts to suppress it. He addresses a neglected aspect of this tragic history in the wide geographical and thematic contexts in which it took place--Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, and the Atlantic Ocean--and situates the story in familial, social, economic, diplomatic, and military spheres. Inhuman Traffick shows how history is done by explaining how the documents on which it is based moved through time and space from the ships, African outposts, colonial buildings, and ministerial offices to the archives of present-day Britain and France. Blaufarb follows the ship, its crew, and its captives from the slave port of Old Calabar to the Caribbean and into the courts of Britain and France, where the history of the illegal slave trade, slavery in the Caribbean, and diplomatic history all come into focus. Students will be taken in by the vivid drawings and the rich narrative, but in Blaufarb's skilled hands, they will also find themselves immersed in a unique learning experience. Blaufarb not only presents the history of the ship and its captives, he takes the reader inside the project itself. He explains how he came upon the story, how he and his editor envisioned the project, and how he worked with illustrator Liz Clarke to craft more than 300 "cells" that comprise Part II of the book. He and Clarke even take the reader inside archives in France and Britain. This powerful combination of historical essay, graphics, primary-source documents, and discussion questions gives students insight into the Atlantic World plantation complex, the transatlantic slave trade, and the process of historical storytelling itself.

Inhuman Traffick: The International Struggle against the Transatlantic Slave Trade: A Graphic History (Graphic History Series)

Comics & Graphic Novels

Graphic Novels

By calming revolutionary turbulence while preserving fundamental gains of 1789, Napoleon Bonaparte laid the foundations of modern France. But his impact reached beyond France’s borders as well. His legacy of war, civil rights, exploitation, and national awakening reshaped identities across the European continent, while in the Atlantic world he destroyed the colonial order and helped plant the seeds of American power. In this collection of wide-ranging primary sources ― including confidential memoranda and correspondence, speeches, memoirs, letters, police reports, and songs, most of which appear in English translation for the first time ― Rafe Blaufarb situates Napoleon within his time while opening a broad perspective on the nature and impact of Napoleonic rule. His introduction provides a narrative of Napoleon’s rise and fall and frames the key issues of Napoleon’s life and times. Useful pedagogical tools include maps, illustrations, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography.

Napoleon: A Symbol for an Age: A Brief History with Documents (The Bedford Series in Istory and Culture)

Biographies & Memoirs

Liebeskind, Claudia

Historical

Bedford/St.Martin's

Presenting a unique view of the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleonic Foot Soldiers and Civilians highlights the experiences of common soldiers and civilians to explore core civil-military interactions during this time in history, giving you a more in-depth picture of life for a soldier.

Napoleonic Foot Soldiers and Civilians: A Brief History with Documents (The Bedford Series in History and Culture)

Making of West Concise 3e V2 & Sources of Making of the West 3e V2 &Napoleon: A Symbol for an Age & Communist Manifesto & Enlightenment

Hunt, Lynn

Martin, Thomas R.

Rosenwein, Barbara H.

Smith, Bonnie G.

ENGELS, FREDERICK

Jacob, Margaret C. C.

Marx,Karl

This is the first book to examine the transformation of the French military profession during the momentous period that saw the death of royal absolutism, the rise and fall of successive revolutionary regimes, the consolidation of Napoleonic rule, and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy after the Empire’s final collapse. Crossing traditional chronological boundaries, it brings together periods in French history that are usually treated separately and challenges established views of change and continuity during the age of Revolution. Based on a wealth of archival sources, this book is as much a social history of ideas like equality, talent, and merit as a military history.

The French Army, 1750-1820: Careers, Talent, Merit

Manchester University Press

Rafe Blaufarb examines the interwoven problems of taxation and social privilege in this treatment of the contention over fiscal privilege between the seigneurial nobility and the tax-payers of Provence. From the 1530s until the French Revolution and beyond, a series of deceptively simple questions divided privileged from non-privileged elites in the province: what made land noble and, hence, tax exempt; how could land acquire or lose noble status? Aired in tribunals ranging from local village courts to the royal council in Versailles, these questions fueled a long-running dispute that shaped the political life of early modern Provence, planted the seeds of revolutionary social conflict, and influenced provincial politics into the nineteenth century.
This book sheds new light on two major fields of scholarly enquiry―early modern state-formation and revolutionary origins―and suggests a new explanation for the rise and fall of French absolutism. By fostering conflict between different kinds of local elites, taxation not only undermined provincial cohesion and invited the intervention of royal authority but also helped to generate the salient social antagonisms of 1789. Although the book treats only a single province, its long-term chronology and broad source base ranging from village archives to the records of the central state provide a more holistic view of early modern French history than shorter-term, Paris-centered studies.
"A major re-evaluation of the fiscal and administrative history of Provence, which adds immeasurably to our knowledge of both the ancien regime and post-revolutionary France."―Julian Swann, professor of early modern history, Birkbeck, University of London
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Rafe Blaufarb is Ben Weider Eminent Scholar and director of the Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution at Florida State University. His publications include The French Army, Bonapartists in the Borderlands: French Exiles and Refugees on the Gulf Coast, and, most recently, Napoleon: Symbol for an Age.
 PRAISE FOR THE BOOK
 "One could well ask whether the world needs yet another study of fiscality and class relations in a French province under the Old Regime. In fact, Blaufarb's study easily justifies a return to this field. . .This book's great strength is its detailed account of how engaged elites experienced fiscal conflict over the centuries, showing how that experience left central (royal or Revolutionary) authorizes in a powerful position as the ultimate arbiters of important provincial affairs. If it sheds light on the social structures and ideologies of early modern France, it is because of the very artificiality that made legal forms such a powerful tool of early modern statecraft." -French History

The Politics of Fiscal Privilege in Provence, 1530s-1830s

The Catholic University of America Press

Bonapartists in the Borderlands: French Exiles and Refugees on the Gulf Coast, 1815-1835

Bonapartists in the Borderlands recounts how Napoleonic exiles and French refugees from Europe and the Caribbean joined forces with Latin American insurgents, Gulf pirates, and international adventurers to seek their fortune in the Gulf borderlands. The U.S. Congress welcomed the French to America and granted them a large tract of rich Black Belt land near Demopolis, Alabama, on the condition that they would establish a Mediterranean-style Vine and Olive colony. This book debunks the standard account of the colony, which stresses the failure of the aristocratic, luxury-loving French to tame the wilderness. Instead, it shows that the Napoleonic officers involved in the colony sold their land shares to speculators to finance an even more perilous adventure--invading the contested Texas borderlands between Spain and the U.S. Their departure left the Vine and Olive colony in the hands of French refugees from the Haitian slave revolt. While they soon abandoned vine cultivation, they successfully recast themselves as prosperous, slaveholding cotton growers and gradually fused into a new elite with newly arrived Anglo-American planters. Rafe Blaufarb examines the underlying motivations and aims that inspired this endeavor and details the nitty-gritty politics, economics, and backroom bargaining that resulted in the settlement. He employs a wide variety of local, national, and international resources: from documents held by the Alabama State Archives, Marengo County court records, and French-language newspapers published in America to material from the War Ministry Archives at Vincennes, the Diplomatic Archives at the Quai d'Orasy, and the French National Archives.

Americas

University Alabama Press

Bonapartists in the Borderlands recounts how Napoleonic exiles and French refugees from Europe and the Caribbean joined forces with Latin American insurgents, Gulf pirates, and international adventurers to seek their fortune in the Gulf borderlands. The U.S. Congress welcomed the French to America and granted them a large tract of rich Black Belt land near Demopolis, Alabama, on the condition that they would establish a Mediterranean-style Vine and Olive colony.This book debunks the standard account of the colony, which stresses the failure of the aristocratic, luxury-loving French to tame the wilderness. Instead, it shows that the Napoleonic officers involved in the colony sold their land shares to speculators to finance an even more perilous adventure--invading the contested Texas borderlands between Spain and the U.S. Their departure left the Vine and Olive colony in the hands of French refugees from the Haitian slave revolt. While they soon abandoned vine cultivation, they successfully recast themselves as prosperous, slaveholding cotton growers and gradually fused into a new elite with newly arrived Anglo-American planters.Rafe Blaufarb examines the underlying motivations and aims that inspired this endeavor and details the nitty-gritty politics, economics, and backroom bargaining that resulted in the settlement. He employs a wide variety of local, national, and international resources: from documents held by the Alabama State Archives, Marengo County court records, and French-language newspapers published in America to material from the War Ministry Archives at Vincennes, the Diplomatic Archives at the Quai d'Orasy, and the French National Archives.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Blaufarb, Rafe. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Blaufarb, Rafe

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Blaufarb, Rafe. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Great Demarcation: The French Revolution and the Invention of Modern Property

Inhuman Traffick: The International Struggle against the Transatlantic Slave Trade: A Graphic History (Graphic History Series)

The Great Demarcation: The French Revolution and the Invention of Modern Property

Napoleon: A Symbol for an Age: A Brief History with Documents (The Bedford Series in Istory and Culture)

Napoleonic Foot Soldiers and Civilians: A Brief History with Documents (The Bedford Series in History and Culture)

Making of West Concise 3e V2 & Sources of Making of the West 3e V2 &Napoleon: A Symbol for an Age & Communist Manifesto & Enlightenment

The French Army, 1750-1820: Careers, Talent, Merit

The Politics of Fiscal Privilege in Provence, 1530s-1830s

Bonapartists in the Borderlands: French Exiles and Refugees on the Gulf Coast, 1815-1835

Bonapartists in the Borderlands: French Exiles and Refugees on the Gulf Coast, 1815-1835