A Revolution in Commerce

This groundbreaking book provides the first comprehensive account of the juridiction consulaire, or Merchant Court, of eighteenth-century Paris. Carefully reconstructing the workings of the Court and the commercial law that it applied, Amalia D. Kessler situates these within the broader context of the contemporaneous social order. The Merchant Court, she shows, serves as a useful lens through which to examine the origins of modern commercial law and society. The book explores how elite merchants, seeking to navigate a complex set of legal institutions, helped to transform both commercial practice and conceptions of commerce. These transformations in turn contributed to the demise of corporatism and, ultimately, to the social and political revolution of 1789. Drawing on extensive archival research, Kessler offers fresh insights into the power of the law to enable and drive ideological and social transformation.

ISBN 0300113978   Pages 352 ISBN13 9780300113976 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher Yale University Press   Weight (grammes) 712 Imprint Yale University Press   Published in New Haven Format Hardback   Height (mm) 228 Publication date 02 Nov 2007   Width (mm) 152 Library of Congress 2007013814   Spine width (mm) 29 DEWEY 346.440709033   Academic level Postgraduate DEWEY edition DC22

		Acknowledgments
		Introduction		1
1		Situating the Court: Institutional Structure, Jurisdictional Conflict, and the Rise of a New Conception of Commerce		16
2		The Court's Self-Conception as a Bastion of Virtue: Relational Contracting and a Community-Based Approach to Procedure		57
3		An Equity-Oriented View of Contract: The Court's Resolution of Disputes Concerning Sales, Employment, and Marriage		96
4		Societe and Sociability: The Changing Structure of Business Associations and the Problem of Merchant Relations		141
5		A Crisis in Virtue: The Challenges of Negotiability and the Rise of a New Commercial Culture		188
6		Launching a National Campaign: The Administrative Monarchy and the Demands of le Commerce		238
		Conclusion		286
		Appendix		299
		Notes		307
		Index		375

." . . the first book-length study of the Juridiction Consulaire de Paris in nearly a century, and by far the best. . . . It will appeal to . . . anyone who hopes to understand the commercial bourgeoisie of old regime France."--Thomas M./i>--Thomas M. Luckett "Project Muse "

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