Strength in Numbers
Subtitle: Population, Reproduction, and Power in Eighteenth-Century France
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: February 5, 2002
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 280
ISBN-13: 9780801868108
Subjects: European history: c 1500 to c 1750; European history: c 1750 to c 1900; Family & relationships; History of ideas, intellectual history; Population & demography; c 1700 to c 1800; Human Population; Applied Ethics; Sociology; Social Science; Sexual ethics; Europe; Human reproduction; Demography; Europe - France; History / Europe / General; Social values; Sociology - General; 18th century; France; History; Moral and ethical aspects; Population policy
First sentence: Louis XIV (1638-1715), King of France and Navarre, was theoretically an absolute monarch.
Description: "In the eighteenth century France became convinced it was losing population. While not technically true (France was merely failing to gain population as rapidly as Great Britain and the German states), the public's belief in a national fertility crisis had far-reaching consequences.

In Strength in Numbers: Population, Reproduction, and Power in Eighteenth-Century France, Carol Blum shows how intellectuals used "natalism" as a means of criticizing the monarchy and the Catholic Church in their pursuit of social change."--BOOK JACKET.