Impersonal Power

Preface to the English Edition

Part One - The Rise of Bourgeois States: Preconditions for an Explanation

1. Miracles, for example
2. States in general, 'bourgeois' states in particular
3. Examples of evolutionary approaches
4. False conclusions from structural analysis
5. Pitfalls in historical comparison
6. Advice on reading


Part Two - From Ancien Regime to Bourgeois State: England

'How then did they do it?'
Chapter 1. English Feudalism: Appropriation by Land Lordship and Force of Arms under Feudally Generalised Royal Power
1.a. Preconditions of feudal rule
1.b. Establishment of feudal power structures

Chapter 2. The Ancien Regime in England
2.a. Establishment of the ancien regime
2.b. Contradictory development of the ancien regime
2.c. The partial revolutionising of the ancien regime

Chapter 3. The Estate Constitution of Public Power
3.a. Dissolution of the personal power of the English monarchs
3.b. Objectification of local generalised power
3.c. The 'Establishment': transformation of church rule

Chapter 4. The Revolutionising of the Forms of Rule of the Ancien Regime into Bourgeois State Power
4.a. Opening up of centralised power of office
4.b. Separation of local power of office from the privileges of the landed nobility
4.c. Dissolution of the ancien regime of appropriation
4.d. From the 'political nation' to a national political public
4.e. 'Pomp and circumstance': the English form of bourgeois state power


Part Three - From Ancien Regime to Bourgeois Society: France

Chapter 1. The Development of 'Feudal' Power Relations
1. a. The rule of the aristocracy
1.b. Hierarchy and immunity

Chapter 2. Plague, War and Difference

Chapter 3. The French Ancien Regime
3.a. Emergence of the ancien regime
3.b. Contradictory development of the ancien regime

Chapter 4. The French Revolution as Event and Structural Change
4.a. The rise of a revolutionary public
4.b. The struggle for a new order
4.c. The revolutionising of ancien-regime forms of rule into bourgeois state power
4.d. Emperor, king and notables: the French constitution of the bourgeois state


Part Four - Results of the Historical Comparison

1. The conditions of personal rule in England and France
2. Conditions for the emergence of the ancien regime
3. Contradictory development of the ancien regime
4. From ancien regime to bourgeois state power: reasons for the 'special roads'


Part Five - The Organisation of Generalised Power: a Conceptual Framework for Historical Epochs
1. Feudalism
2. Ancien regime
3. Bourgeois state

Annotated Bibliography
Index