HST 407/507:
"The Age of Louis XIV"
Thomas Luckett
Winter 2007
Wednesday, 10:00 AM -
1:00 PM
Room 494 Cramer Hall
WebCT required: This is the public web page for
this course.
The rest of the web site for this course is available only through
WebCT,
and will become accessible at the start of the term. To view it,
you will need to obtain an ODIN account, and enroll in the
course.
Use of WebCT is a requirement of the course, but prior experience with
WebCT is not required.
If you are new to ODIN or WebCT, the following links will
be useful:
Course section information:
- HST 407/507, sec TML, crn 44875 / 44876.
Course description: This is a general course on the
social, intellectual, political and cultural history of France in the
period 1610-1715. Themes include: the rise of the absolutist
state, conflict between the king and the parlements, the intellectual
life of Paris and its salons, the ideas of Blaise Pascal, the
scientific revolution, the peasantry and peasant rebellion, the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and its consequences.
Goals: By the
end of the term, the student should:
- Understand broadly the history of France during the reigns
of Louis XIII and Louis XIV.
- Be able to critique a secondary work on early modern
France, identify its strengths and weaknesses, and explain how it
fits into the larger historiography.
- Be able to analyze a primary source on early modern France,
and explain how it could be used to support a particular
position in the historiography.
- Be able to develop and write, at an advanced level, an
original historical research paper.
Course requirements:
Readings are to be done by the day for which they are assigned.
Grades will be based on a final research paper (15-25 pages,
double-spaced), four short ungraded assignments designed to help you
write the research paper, an in-class oral presentation of your
research, one in-class introduction of the assigned reading, attendance
and participation. There is no final exam.
Research: Depending on
the topic
chosen, students in this course may be able to do all of their
primary-source research with the following online collections.
See also my guide to Researching French History at PSU.
- Early English Books Online, 1475-1700.
Full-text database of most books printed in England, to 1700.
- Gallica.
Full-text database
created by France's Bibliothèque nationale. Click on
"recherche" and use the search engine. (Of value only to those
students who read French.)
Readings available through PSU Bookstore:
- Beik, William, Louis XIV
and Absolutism: A Brief Study with Documents (Bedford/Saint
Martin's, 2000). ISBN 0-312-13309-X
- Burke, Peter, The
Fabrication of Louis XIV
(Yale UP, 1992). ISBN 0-300-05943-4
- Craveri, Benedetta, The
Age of Conversation, trans. Teresa Waugh
(New York Review of Books, 2005). ISBN 1-59017-214-0
- Goubert, Pierre, The
French Peasantry in the Seventeenth Century, trans. Ian
Patterson
(Cambridge UP, 1986). ISBN 0-521-31269-8
- Moote, A. Lloyd, Louis
XIII, the Just (U of California P, 1989). ISBN
0-520-07546-3
- Pascal, Blaise, Pensees
and Other Writings, trans. Honor Levi (Oxford UP, 1999).
ISBN 0-19-283655-2
Contact Prof. Thomas Luckett:
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