Labour, Science and Technology in France, 1500}}}1620 [Hardcover]

This 1995 book is a detailed study of technological and scientific ideas and innovation in early modern France.In this detailed study, Henry Heller challenges the dominant approach to the history of early modern France, that of the Annales school, with its emphasis on long-term economic and cultural forces. He re-examines the history of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in France, and finds a surprising degree of economic, technological and scientific innovation. At the same time, he contests the view that the religious conflicts of the period ought only to be understood in strictly religious terms.In this detailed study, Henry Heller challenges the dominant approach to the history of early modern France, that of the Annales school, with its emphasis on long-term economic and cultural forces. He re-examines the history of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in France, and finds a surprising degree of economic, technological and scientific innovation. At the same time, he contests the view that the religious conflicts of the period ought only to be understood in strictly religious terms.In this detailed study, Henry Heller challenges the dominant approach to the history of early modern France, that of the Annales school, with its emphasis on long-term economic and cultural forces. He reexamines the history of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in France, and finds a surprising degree of economic, technological and scientific innovation. At the same time, he contests the view that the religious conflicts of the period ought only to be understood in strictly religious terms.1. The expansion of Parisian merchant capital; 2. Labour in Paris in the sixteenth century; 3. Civil war and economic experiments; 4. Inventions and science in the reign of Charles IX; 5. Expropriation, technology and wage labour; 6. The Bourbon economic restoration; 7. Braudel, Le Roy Ladurie and the inertia of history. This important advance in social and economic lC(