Offering a broad and vivid survey of the culture of collecting from the French Revolution to the Belle Époque, The Purchase of the Past explores how material things became a central means of accessing and imagining the past in nineteenth-century France.  Meer

Georges Lefebvre was one of the most highly-regarded historians of the 20th century – and a key reason for the high reputation he enjoys can be found in The Coming of the French Revolution.  Meer

Georges Lefebvre was one of the most highly-regarded historians of the 20th century – and a key reason for the high reputation he enjoys can be found in The Coming of the French Revolution.  Meer

Surveying the collecting culture from the French Revolution to the Belle Époque, this study explores how material things became a central means by which the past was accessed and imagined in nineteenth-century Paris, revealing how the Revolution triggered the rise of a new market for antiques and new struggles over the custody of France's heritage.  Meer