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Princeton University Press

An Infinite History: The Story of a Family in France Over Three Centuries by Rothschild, Emma

An Infinite History: The Story of a Family in France Over Three Centuries by Rothschild, Emma

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An innovative history of deep social and economic changes in France, told through the story of a single extended family across five generations

Marie Aymard was an illiterate widow who lived in the provincial town of Angoul me in southwestern France, a place where seemingly nothing ever happened. Yet, in 1764, she made her fleeting mark on the historical record through two documents: a power of attorney in connection with the property of her late husband, a carpenter on the island of Grenada, and a prenuptial contract for her daughter, signed by eighty-three people in Angoul me. Who was Marie Aymard? Who were all these people? And why were they together on a dark afternoon in December 1764? Beginning with these questions, An Infinite History offers a panoramic look at an extended family over five generations. Through ninety-eight connected stories about inquisitive, sociable individuals, ending with Marie Aymard's great-great granddaughter in 1906, Emma Rothschild unfurls an innovative modern history of social and family networks, emigration, immobility, the French Revolution, and the transformation of nineteenth-century economic life.

Rothschild spins a vast narrative resembling a period novel, one that looks at a large, obscure family, of whom almost no private letters survive, whose members traveled to Syria, Mexico, and Tahiti, and whose destinies were profoundly unequal, from a seamstress living in poverty in Paris to her third cousin, the cardinal of Algiers. Rothschild not only draws on discoveries in local archives but also uses new technologies, including the visualization of social networks, large-scale searches, and groundbreaking methods of genealogical research.

An Infinite History demonstrates how the ordinary lives of one family over three centuries can constitute a remarkable record of deep social and economic changes.

Author: Emma Rothschild
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 01/26/2021
Pages: 464
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 2.05lbs
Size: 9.40h x 6.30w x 1.90d
ISBN: 9780691200309

About the Author
Emma Rothschild is the Jeremy and Jane Knowles Professor of History at Harvard University, where she directs the Center for History and Economics. Her books include The Inner Life of Empires (Princeton) and Economic Sentiments.

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