Who, exactly, were the French bourgeois?
As a definition of a social class, the term «bourgeoisie» has fit uncomfortably on a large swath of society, from the richest bankers to struggling artisans and shopkeepers. And hardly anyone in France has claimed to be bourgeois; the word invariably applied to someone else. Unlike Anglo-Americans, who widely embraced middleclass ideals, the French – even the most affluent and conservative – have always rejected and maligned bourgeois values and identity. In this new approach to an old question, Sarah Maza focuses on the crucial period before, during, and after the French Revolution, and offers a provocative answer: the French bourgeoisie has never existed. Drawing on political and economic theory and history, personal and polemical writings, and works of fiction, Maza argues that no group ever identified itself as bourgeois and that the bourgeoisie was never the social norm, an imagined and threatening embodiment of materialism, self-interest, commercialism, and mass culture, shich de
