A new edition of Kaplan's landmark study on eighteenth-century French political economy, reissued with a new Foreword by Sophus A. Reinert. Based on comprehensive archival, Kaplan's classic work constitutes a major contribution to the study of the subsistence problem before the French Revolution and the political economy of deregulatory reform.

List of Illustrations; Foreword to the Second Edition; Acknowledgements; List of Abbreviations; Introduction; 1. The Police of Provisioning; 2. The Regulations and the Regulators; 3. The Origins of Liberty; 4. The Response to Liberalization: Theory and Practice; 5. Forcing Grain to be Free: The Government Holds the Line; 6. The Reforms and the Grain Trade; 7. Paris; 8. The Royal Trump; 9. The Government, the Parlements, and the Battle over Liberty: I; 10. The Government, the Parlements, and the Battle over Liberty: II; 11. From Political Economy to Police: The Return to Apprehensive Paternalism; 12. Policing the General Subsistence, 1771-1774; 13. The King's Grain and the Retreat from Liberalization; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index

Steven L. Kaplan is the Goldwin Smith Professor of European History, emeritus at Cornell University.