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Professor wins prestigious award for research project on fiscal origins of the French Revolution – University of Reading

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Professor wins prestigious award for research project on fiscal origins of the French Revolution

Release Date 18 March 2013

Joel Felix

The University of Reading is delighted to announce that Professor Joel Felix, Head of Department of Modern Languages and European Studies, has been awarded a three year Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Research Professorship for his work on the fiscal origins of the French Revolution.

Professor Felix is a historian of the Ancien Regime and the French Revolution and has written numerous publications on the subject. His research project "Fiscal Origins of the French Revolution: financial crises, public opinion and institutional change in Early Modern Europe, 1688-1789", will be funded with the award, worth £242,965

Professor Felix said: "Fiscal history has never been more relevant than today, and the public awareness raised by the crash of 2007/08 provides the perfect platform to make the subject better known to the general public and to inform current political and financial debates. My research will assess the ways in which fiscal issues put the very fabric of societies under stress, causing crises and fostering change. The core of my project is to explain why and how the fiscal problems of the Bourbon monarchy paved the way to the French Revolution."

As part of the project, Professor Felix will organise a series of public lectures and two international conferences on historical finance to see how the past can inform today's issues. He will also write a comprehensive monograph on the fiscal origins of the French Revolution which is under contract with UOP.

The ESRC is the UK's largest organisation for funding research on economic and social issues. It supports independent, high quality research which has an impact on business, the public sector and the third sector.

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