A world of paper : Louis XIV, Colbert de Torcy, and the rise of the information state

Resource Information

The work A world of paper : Louis XIV, Colbert de Torcy, and the rise of the information state represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of San Diego Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

A world of paper : Louis XIV, Colbert de Torcy, and the rise of the information state

Title remainder

Louis XIV, Colbert de Torcy, and the rise of the information state

Statement of responsibility

John C. Rule and Ben S. Trotter

Creator

• Rule, John C

Contributor

• Trotter, Ben S., 1949-

Author

• Rule, John C
• Trotter, Ben S., 1949-

Subject

• Bureaucracy -- France -- History -- 17th century
• History
• Employees
• Government information -- France -- Management | History -- 17th century
• France, Ministère des affaires étrangères
• Management
• Louis, XIV, King of France, 1638-1715
• Bureaucracy
• France
• Bureaucracy -- France -- History -- 18th century
• Torcy, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, marquis de, 1665-1746
• France -- History -- Louis XIV, 1643-1715
• Government information -- France -- Management | History -- 18th century
• Louis, XIV, King of France, 1638-1715
• Government information -- Management
• France, Ministère des affaires étrangères -- Management | History
• Torcy, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, marquis de, 1665-1746
• France, Ministère des affaires étrangères -- Officials and employees | History
• International relations -- Administration
• France -- Foreign relations administration | History

Genre

• History

Language

eng

Summary

Historians and social scientists have long identified bureaucracy as the modern state's foundation and the reign of France's Louis XIV as a model for its development. A World of Paper offers a fresh interpretation of bureaucracy through a close examination of the department of the Sun King's last foreign secretary, Jean-Baptiste Colbert de Torcy. Torcy, who served as foreign secretary from 1696-1715, is widely regarded as one of the most brilliant foreign ministers of the ancien regime. Building on the work of his predecessors, he fashioned a skilled team of collaborators as he managed the complex issues of war and peace during the turbulent final decades of Louis XIV's reign. John Rule and Ben Trotter examine Torcy's department to depict administrative structures as they emerged through the circulating stream of paper that connected his office with provincial administrators and diplomats abroad. They explore the collection and centralization of information during Torcy's tenure through the creation of a modern state archive, discreet intelligence gathering, and the surveillance and management of the French mails. They also study the postal carriers, couriers, household officers of the royal court, genealogists hired for research, and an informal "brain trust" of experts, and advisors who carried vital information in and out of the department every day. A remarkable reconstruction of the department of Jean-Baptiste Colbert de Torcy, A World of Paper demystifies bureaucracy and explores the ways in which the modern information state developed from his labours

Additional physical form

Issued also in electronic format

Cataloging source

NLC

Illustrations

• illustrations
• maps
• portraits
• charts

Index

index present

LC call number

DC126

LC item number

.R84 2014

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography