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History 311. The Ancien Regime: How and Why do we Create Labels? January 10, 2008.
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History 311 The Ancien Regime: How and Why do we Create Labels? January 10, 2008
“If the study of history teaches us anything, it teaches us that one can find convincing historical analogies and arguments to support just about any a priori position we have taken and are determined to defend.” ---Morman
The Ancien Regime; the Old Regime How and Why do we Create Labels? Do the labels we use explain the past or do they create the past? Examples: The Middle Ages, the Dark Ages, the Reformation, the Renaissance, the Third World Are historical labels a useful analytical tool?
The Father of Modern Conservatism • Edmund Burke (1729-1797) • Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790 • State as Partnership with the Past and the Future • Opposed revolutionary change • Supports evolutionary change • Society is viewed as an organism that supports gradual change, but resists radical change based upon abstract, rational principles.
Alexis de Tocqueville 1805-1859 The Ancien Regime and the French Revolution, 1856 Democracy in America, 1835 De Tocqueville argued that modern history was moving towards ever greater equality, but that equality also engendered centralization, despotism, and the ultimate destruction of liberty.
Marx and Economics in History • Class Struggle • French Revolution as the Triumph of Capitalism over Feudalism • Jean Jaures 1818-1883 Karl Marx (1818-1883)