Tracing the Shadow of Secrecy and Government Transparency in Eighteenth-Century France

Beschreibung

This book traces changing attitudes towards secrecy in eighteenth-century France, and explores the cultural origins of ideas surrounding government transparency. The idea of keeping secrets, both on the part of individuals and on the part of governments, came to be viewed with more suspicion as the century progressed. By the eve of the French Revolution, writers voicing concerns about corruption saw secrecy as part and parcel of despotism, and this shift went hand in hand with the rise of the idea of transparency. The author argues that the emphasis placed on government transparency, especially the mania for transparency that dominated the French Revolution, resulted from the surprising connections and confluence of changing attitudes towards honour, religious movements, rising nationalism, literature, and police practices. Exploring religious ideas that associated secrecy with darkness and wickedness, and proto-nationalist discourse that equated foreignness with secrecy, this book demonstrates how cultural shifts in eighteenth-century France influenced its politics. Covering the period of intense fear during the French Revolution and the paranoia of the Reign of Terror, the book highlights the complex interplay of culture and politics and provides insights into our attitudes towards secrecy today. 
Nicole Bauer is Assistant Professor of European History at the University of Tulsa in the USA. A cultural historian of early modern France, she is particularly interested in pulling threads from different directions to understand and uncover the cultural origins of political and social movements.

This book traces changing attitudes towards secrecy in eighteenth-century France, and explores the cultural origins of ideas surrounding government transparency. The idea of keeping secrets, both on the part of individuals and on the part of governments, came to be viewed with more suspicion as the century progressed. By the eve of the French Revolution, writers voicing concerns about corruption saw secrecy as part and parcel of despotism, and this shift went hand in hand with the rise of the idea of transparency. The author argues that the emphasis placed on government transparency, especially the mania for transparency that dominated the French Revolution, resulted from the surprising connections and confluence of changing attitudes towards honour, religious movements, rising nationalism, literature, and police practices. Exploring religious ideas that associated secrecy with darkness and wickedness, and proto-nationalist discourse that equated foreignness with secrecy, this book demonstrates how cultural shifts in eighteenth-century France influenced its politics. Covering the period of intense fear during the French Revolution and the paranoia of the Reign of Terror, the book highlights the complex interplay of culture and politics and provides insights into our attitudes towards secrecy today. 
Draws on hundreds of period records, interrogations, private letters, dossiers, religious and political pamphlets Explores the connection between growing nationalism and the expulsion of the Jesuits from France Takes a longue durée approach to the discourse on secrecy from the early eighteenth century to the Terror

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Nicole Bauer

Themen in »Tracing the Shadow of Secrecy and Government Transparency in Eighteenth-Century France«

Government Government transparency Early modern France Secrecy Conspiracy Espionage Crime Jesuit Otherness Foreignness French Revolution Reign of Terror Suspicion Corruption Honour

Stimmen zu »Tracing the Shadow of Secrecy and Government Transparency in Eighteenth-Century France«

"The bibliography, however, leaves the reader in no doubts to Bauer’s firm handles both archival and historiographical material, and the book will be a valuable resource for colleagues and students alike. The result is a well-researched and engaging study that, to exhaust the optical metaphor, takes a wide-angled view on a rich and timely subject." (Nineteenth-Century French Studies, ncfs-journal.org, 2025)

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