The Virtues of Violence studies a pervasive but misunderstood image of violence in modern French thought: popular violence as social regeneration. It argues that this vision of violence was not a niche phenomenon, but central to the momentous developments of modern French politics. It appealed to thinkers across the spectrum because it answered fundamental dilemmas at the heart of democratization. Understanding its pervasive appeal, Duong argues, reveals howdemocracy was never simply a struggle for justice or a new legal regime, but also liberating visions of the social bond.

How did warrior nobles’ practices of violence shape provincial society and the royal state in early seventeenth-century France? Warrior nobles frequently armed themselves for civil war in southern France during the troubled early seventeenth century. These bellicose nobles’ practices of violence shaped provincial society and the royal state in early modern France. The southern French provinces of Guyenne and Languedoc suffered almost continual religious strife and civil conflict between 1598 and 1635, providing an excellent case for investigating the dynamics of early modern civil violence. Warrior Pursuits constructs a cultural history of civil conflict, analyzing in detail how provincial nobles engaged in revolt and civil warfare during this period. Brian Sandberg’s extensive archival research on noble families in these provinces reveals that violence continued to be a way of life for many French nobles, challenging previous scholarship that depicts a progressive “civilizing” of noble culture. Sandberg argues that southern French nobles engaged in warrior pursuits—social and cultural practices of violence designed to raise personal military forces and to wage civil warfare in order to advance various political and religious goals. Close relationships between the profession of arms, the bonds of nobility, and the culture of revolt allowed nobles to regard their violent performances as “heroic gestures” and “beautiful warrior acts.” Warrior nobles represented the key organizers of civil warfare in the early seventeenth century, orchestrating all aspects of the conduct of civil warfare—from recruitment to combat—according to their own understandings of their warrior pursuits. Building on the work of Arlette Jouanna and other historians of the nobility, Sandberg provides new perspectives on noble culture, state development, and civil warfare in early modern France. French historians and scholars of the Reformation and the European Wars of Religion will find Warrior Pursuits engaging and insightful.

With its unique blend of political history and political theory, this book is a welcome addition to the series on Politics, Culture and Society in the New Europe. Nick Hewlett begins his fascinating study with a discussion of the various ways in which the concept of democracy has been interpreted. He continues by tracing the effect of France's revolutionary tradition on the theory and practice of democracy since the Enlightenment, looking in particular at both republican democracy and direct democracy. Hewlett examines the implications for democracy of profound social and political conflict in France and offers an unusual critique of the institutions and structures of formal politics, suggesting that their relationship with democracy is more tenuous than is often assumed. The political philosophy of `new liberals' such as Luc Ferry and Marcel Gauchet is also discussed in detail. Thought-provoking, original and closely-argued, this book explores some key aspects of politics in France whilst making a strong case for greater direct participation of ordinary people in politics. Nick Hewlett is Professor of French Studies and Director of the Centre for European Research at Oxford Brookes University. He is author of Modern French Politics. Conflict and Consensus since 1945 (1998), co-author of Contemporary France (with Jill Forbes and François Nectoux, 1994 and 2001), and co-editor of Currents in Contemporary French intellectual Life (with Christopher Flood, 2000) and Unity and Diversity in the New Europe (with Barrie Axford and Daniela Berghahn, 2000).

Christofferson argues that French anti-totalitarianism was the culmination of direct-democratic critiques of communism & revisions of the revolutionary project after 1956. He offers an alternative interpretation for the denunciation of communism & Marxism by the French intellectual left in the late 1970s.

The rise of civilized conduct and behaviour has long been seen as one of the major factors in the transformation from medieval to modern society. Thinkers and historians alike argue that violence progressively declined as men learned to control their emotions. The feud is a phenomenon associated with backward societies, and in the West duelling codified behaviour and channelled aggression into ritualised combats that satisfied honour without the shedding of blood. French manners andcodes of civility laid the foundations of civilized Western values. But as this original work of archival research shows we continue to romanticize violence in the era of the swashbuckling swordsman. In France, thousands of men died in duels in which the rules of the game were regularly flouted.Many duels were in fact mini-battles and must be seen not as a replacement of the blood feud, but as a continuation of vengeance-taking in a much bloodier form. This book outlines the nature of feuding in France and its intensification in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, civil war and dynastic weakness, and considers the solutions proposed by thinkers from Montaigne to Hobbes. The creation of the largest standing army in Europe since the Romans was one such solution, but themilitarization of society, a model adopted throughout Europe, reveals the darker side of the civilizing process.