Notables and the Nation

Vivian R. Gruder is Professor of History Emerita, Queens College, City University of New York.

• Acknowledgments Map Introduction Part I: The Assembly of Notables: February-May 1787, November-December 1788 1. Paths to Political Consciousness: The Notables in the First Assembly, February-May 1787 2. Privilege, Property, and Participation: A Mutation in Elite Political Culture 3. The Society of Orders at Its Demise: The Vision of the Elite at the End of the Ancien Regime Part II: The Media and the Public: Networks of Information, Opinion, Instruction 4. Political News as Coded Messages: The Parisian and Provincial Press, 1787-1788 5. The French Foreign-Language Press: Gazettes 6. The French Foreign-Language Press: Journals of Opinion 7. Manuscript Newsletters--Nouvelles a la Main 8. Pamphlets: A Network of Political Education and Polemics 9. Readers and Reading Sites: The Public and the Network of the Printed and Written Media 10. The Verbal, the Visual and the Festive Part III: At the "Grass Roots" 11. Popular Pamphlets: Political Messages to the Public 12. Can We Hear the Voices of Peasants? 13. The "Grass Roots": Community Assemblies Deliberating Conclusion Appendix I: Chronology Appendix II: Contemporary Accounts of Fetes Bibliographical Abbreviations Notes

This excellent work retraces the pre-revolutionary political events of 1787-1788. Particularly interesting is Gruder's convincing evidence--in the form of newspapers, pamphlets, and nouvelles à la main--showing that the debates of the notables, and after them the Paris Parlementaires, were widely discussed by an involved and informed French reading public. Combining a lively awareness of recent scholarship on the formation of public opinion and the nature of the reading public with a well-written, accessible text, The Notables and the Nation offers much to be admired.