From: Renaissance Quarterly | Date: March 22, 1998| Author: Long, Pamela O. | COPYRIGHT 1998 Renaissance Society of America. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

This important study utilizes the approaches of several subdisciplines to investigate the relationships among labor, science, and technology in Valois and early Bourbon France. Heller challenges traditional accounts of the ancien regime developed by Annales school historians such as Fernand Braudel and Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie. He points to the conservatism of an approach that emphasizes long-term structures and downplays political and social change. In place of "l'histoire immobile,"...