This pathbreaking book shows how credit markets functioned in Paris, through the agency of notaries, during a critical period of French history. Its authors challenge the usual assumption that organized financial markets—and hence the opportunity for economic growth—did not emerge outside of England and the Netherlands until the nineteenth century. Drawing on innovative research, the authors show that as early as the Old Regime, financial intermediaries in France were mobilizing a great tide of capital and arranging thousands of loans between borrowers and lenders. The implications for historians and economists are substantial. The role of notaries operating in Paris that Priceless Markets uncovers has never before been recognized. In the wake of this pathbreaking new study, historians will also have to rethink the origins of the French Revolution. As the authors show, the crisis of 1787-88 did not simply ignite revolt; it was intimately bound up in an economic struggle that reached far back into the eighteenth century, and continued well into the 1800s.

This series is for the Cambridge International AS History syllabus (9489) for examination from 2021. Written by an experienced author team that includes examiners, a practising teacher and trainer, this coursebook supports the Cambridge International AS History syllabus. With increased depth of coverage, this coursebook helps build confidence and understanding in language, essay-writing and evaluation skills. It develops students' conceptual understanding of history with the five new 'Key concepts', for example exploring similarity and difference in the aims/achievements of Witte and Stolypin. In addition, it encourages individuals to make substantiated judgments and reflect on their learning. Students can consolidate their skills though exam-style questions with source material and sample responses.

This book argues that the introduction of popular sovereignty as the basis for government in France facilitated a dramatic transformation in international law in the eighteenth century.

The monarchy of Louis XVI suffered revolution and then destruction after failing to settle its financial difficulties. What precisely were those difficulties? In this book, Professor Bosher shows that the monarchy was financed by a chaotic system of private enterprise which proved increasingly unmanageable and wasteful. Hundreds of profit-seeking accountants - 'capitalists', in the language of the time - stood in the way of reform and even of clear accounting until governments of the French Revolution eventually nationalized the financial system and changed it 'from capitalism into a bureaucracy'. From his close study of the administrative changes Professor Bosher concludes that the National Assembly planned to guard the public finances by bureaucratic organization. 'With a vision of mechanical efficiency and articulation', he writes, 'systems of clock-like checks and balances such as eighteenth-century Frenchmen found everywhere, even in nature itself, the revolutionary planners hoped to prevent corruption, putting their faith in the virtues of organization to offset the vices of the individual men.'