x.i. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ECONOMIC BASE

GRASPING IT CHANGES THE VIEW OF THE PAST, WHICH LEADS TO APPLYING IT TO THE PRESENT

That explains why one finds it at times when the left is strong, and why it disappears when the right is. 

• Setting the scene: Tangible factors explain the city's structure.

• Small farms: ferocious repressions and art de vivre: How selling émigré and Church lands to peasants during the Revolution affected French culture until the 1960's.

• Why nobles rarely adjusted to capitalism (halfway down the page).

• Nobles, gods and heroes: When explorations and discoveries bring much more dynamic capitalists, nobles identify with mythological and Roman heroes to claim innate superiority.

• All aspects of the Old Regime reinforced the nobles, a concept that applies to societies generally, including our own.

• Have the kings become subversive?  Today they are reduced to anecdotes: What does that favor?  

• Setting the past in its economic context shows how things work. Skipping it is often involuntary.

• "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder:" Why views of corpulence differ.

Next: 

x.ii.

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