Week 4 suggested essay topics:

What was the economic logic of the sale and purchase of public office in eighteenth-century France and Britain?

Do the English Revolution of 1688 and the French Revolution of 1789 represent decisive steps in the development of capitalism in the two countries?

For the second topic, see the lecture readings for Weeks 3 and 4. Here I add a few references for the first topic, on offices. Also a few with more on the revolution of 1789 and its effects.

Allen, D., The Institutional Revolution, Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 2012. Chs. 1-2 set out the theoretical ideas; Chs. 5-8 consider the navy (where commissions were not purchased), army, and various public services. You could choose what interested you most from this material. I would skip Chs. 3-4, which are long and have to do with codes of behaviour among the aristocracy. Important and interesting but not directly, directly relevant to the essay. The author published a number of journal articles before the book, which may be more easily accessible on line.

Bien, D., "Every Shoemaker an Officier: Terray as Reformer," in L'Histoire Grande Ouverte. Hommages a Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie A. Burguiere, J. Goy and M. Tits-Dieuaide eds. (Paris: Fayard, 1997).

Bossenga, Gail, "From Corps to Citizenship: The Bureaux des Finances before the French Revolution," Journal of Modern History, vol. 58 no. 3 (1986), pp. 610-42.

Doyle, William, Officers, nobles and revolutionaries : essays on eighteenth-century France, London: Hambledon, 1995. Ch. 4 (Venality and Society in Eighteenth-Century Bordeaux), Ch. 5 (The Price of Offices in Pre-Revolutionary France). These are probably the best chapters. The book is available on-line via the Bodleian catalogue SOLO.

--- , "Changing Notions of Public Corruption, c.1770 - c.1850," in Corrupt Histories, E. Kreike and W. Jordan, eds. (Rochester, NY: U. of Rochester Press, 2004).

--- , Venality. The Sale of Offices in Eighteenth-Century France. Oxford: OUP, 1996., Ch. 6 ("Honour for money: venality in society") and Ch. 7 ("Money for honour: offices in the market") may be the most useful. The book is available on-line via the Bodleian catalogue SOLO.

Hoffman, Philip, Gilles Postel-Vinay, and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, Priceless Markets: the political economy of credit in Paris, 1660-1870, Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 2000. This book is about Paris credit market, which was organised and run by notaries, who were office holders. Some of this work is published in journal articles. There is also their book Dark Matter Credit, which extends the analysis to the rest of France.

Rubinstein, W.D., "The End of 'Old Corruption' in Britain 1780-1860," Past and Present, 1983.

Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent. The Fruits of Revolution: Property Rights, Litigation, and French Agriculture, 1700-1860. Cambridge: CUP, 1992.

Sutherland, D., "Peasants, Lords, and Leviathan: Winners and Losers from the Abolition of French Feudalism, 1780-1820"", JEH, vol. 62 no. 1 (March 2002), pp. 1-24.

Revue Économique. Numéro spécial: "Révolution de 1789: Guerres et Croissance économique". vol. 40, no. 6 (Nov. 1989). This can be accessed on-line via Bodleian.

Crouzet, François, " War, Blockade, and Economic Change in Europe, 1792-1815," JEH, vol. 24 no. 4 (1964), pp. 567-590.