The French Generation of 1820

Alan Spitzer approaches the history of the French Restoration by examining the experience of a particular age group born between 1792 and 1803: the generation of 1820. A predominantly male, middle-class, educated minority of this group was perceived as representing all that was most promising and specifically youthful in the period. Their response to the pressures of transition was expressed in the fractious behavior of the youth of the schools,” and in voluntary associations, masonic lodges, conspiratorial cells, and influential journals, which depended on a dense network of personal relationships. Professor Spitzer portrays these connections in a set of sociograms using new techniques for the visual representation of social networks.

Originally published in 1987.

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