The Early Modern State: A Historically Ensnared Entity

A major historical object continues to raise sharp problems of method and analysis: the State . If the question of the State generates so much inquiry, debate, and methodological issues for historians of the early modern period, it is due to the combined effect of two causes. The first, in our view, lies in the immensity of the undertakings related to the analysis of the genesis of the modern State that was conducted in the 1980s-1990 ; the second is linked to the rapid transformations that the State has undergone in the last thirty years, not as an object, but as an overarching structure within which researchers situate themselves to materially conduct their research and teaching . These profound transformations have had consequences on the very definition of their scientific objects and the context in which their research is received, the methods of work, and the geographic areas studied . The conjunction of these two factors has enduringly ensnared the history of the State and, consequently, the administration and governance of the Kingdom of France.