The Family and the Nation: Gender and Citizenship in Revolutionary France, 1789–1830 - Hardcover

Heuer, Jennifer Ngaire

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0801442869 ISBN 13: 9780801442865

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2005

Synopsis

The French Revolution transformed the nation's―and eventually the world's―thinking about citizenship, nationality, and gender roles. At the same time, it created fundamental contradictions between citizenship and family as women acquired new rights and duties but remained dependents within the household. In The Family and the Nation, Jennifer Ngaire Heuer examines the meaning of citizenship during and after the revolution and the relationship between citizenship and gender as these ideas and practices were reworked in the late 1790s and early nineteenth century.

Heuer argues that tensions between family and nation shaped men's and women's legal and social identities from the Revolution and Terror through the Restoration. She shows the critical importance of relating nationality to political citizenship and of examining the application, not just the creation, of new categories of membership in the nation. Heuer draws on diverse historical sources―from political treatises to police records, immigration reports to court cases―to demonstrate the extent of revolutionary concern over national citizenship. This book casts into relief France's evolving attitudes toward patriotism, immigration, and emigration, and the frequently opposing demands of family ties and citizenship.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"This is an intelligent, innovative, and clearly argued book. By focusing on the end of the Revolution and the early Restoration, Jennifer Ngaire Heuer offers a much-needed and timely intervention in the fields of French history and women's history. After the collapse of the Terror, French society struggled to make sense of the Revolution's radical reshaping of women's rights. Heuer reveals the depth of the struggles over women's claims to citizenship and describes their painful and protracted resolution."--Judith A. Miller, Emory University

About the Author:

Jennifer Ngaire Heuer is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0801442869
• ISBN 13: 9780801442865
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 266