Contenu du sommaire : Économie de l'Égypte ancienne - Écrire l'histoire de France - Figures d'autorité - Freud et la politique

Rethinking Pharaonic Economy Pharaonic economy still remains a relatively underdeveloped area of study, one that is predominated by many preconceived ideas ranging from the rigidity of its allegedly unchanged structures to the insignificant role played by trade. This article begins with a historical overview of the research on the economic history of ancient Egypt. It then explores several topics that could significantly contribute to the debates on ancient economic histories : these include private trade, economic growth, the management of irrigation, the weight of institutions in economic activities, and the proposal of theoretical models that extend beyond evolutionary schemes.

The Social Organization of Pharaonic Agriculture : Some Case Studies Contrary to the common assumption that ancient Egypt was a gift of the Nile, evidence shows that chronology, regional specificities, and social diversity produced different types of agriculture in the Nile valley. While administrative sources mainly concern the agricultural activities carried out by large institutions (temples and the royal palace) and based on very distinct techniques, production, and organization of the workforce, these specificities coexisted with a form of domestic agriculture that was characterized by horticulture, intensive labor, and little animal traction. The idea that the peasantry was uniform needs to be reconsidered in light of the stratification of rural society and the strategies developed by large institutions, which sought to deepen social differences and strengthen the authority of local potentates.

Barley and Silver : Monetary Uses in Ayn Manâwir During the Persian Period This article examines the case of the oasean village of Ayn Manâwir, the history of which is recorded in 500 documents from the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, in order to analyze how the Egyptians apprehended silver staters, which had began to spread across Egypt during this period. Greek coins were integrated in the Egyptian monetary system, in which silver currency cohabited with commodity money based on barley. In this context, the use of silver contributed to establishing trust in transactions involving prominent citizens' assets, constituting one of it's primary qualities.

Ptolemaic Currency and Egyptian Temples : The Diffusion of Bronze Coinage in Thebaid in the 3rd Century BC The monetary system of Ptolemaic Egypt, established under King Ptolemy I, was composed of silver and bronze coins, the latter having only a fiduciary value. When he reformed the tax system, Ptolemy II (284-246 BCE) required the payment in bronze currency of numerous taxes – part of the proceeds of which were allotted to the temples. The clergy was therefore paid in bronze coins. Given that many Egyptians were employed by the temples, they were equally paid in bronze coins, which would explain the widespread distribution of this coinage in the country. Ptolemy II's policy thus promoted the circulation of this form of currency.

The Nations that Globalization and Empires Made : Writing the Nineteenth-Century National Narrative Today It is the postulate of the books discussed here, and this review, that there is still a great deal of life left in our hoary national frameworks in an age of global and imperial history. The three volumes of the Histoire de la France contemporaine by Aurélien Lignereux, Bertrand Goujon, and Quentin Deluermoz may be read as one more wave in a historiographical series that is in a profound process of renewal : How to prevent a trip back down the national from becoming yet another nostalgic journey that has lost none of its charm and popular appeal, but seems of a different era ? The radically new ways in which the local, regional, imperial, oceanic, hemispheric, and global scales became so deeply enmeshed during the nineteenth century was due, primarily, and this is the essential point, to the construction and consolidation of the modern nation. What is necessary, and a reading (which is also an interpretation) of these volumes suggests precisely this point, is not a turning away from national history, but a serious consideration of how national histories have and will inform the imperial and global histories of tomorrow.

The Command : A History of Practices This article provides a critical reading of Yves Cohen's recent book Le siècle des chefs, discussing its participation in the historiographical trend of “pragmatic history” (of which Yves Cohen is a distinguished representative). Following a description of the main ideas presented in the book, this article examines its central claim : that the command is a distinguishing feature of the twentieth century. It demonstrates how the methodology of pragmatic history enables the author to examine his topic in a new and original way and considers the relationship between practices and discourses as objects of historical inquiry. The final section is devoted to the implications of pragmatic history, considered as part of the broader “practice turn” that has characterized the social sciences over the last three decades.

Leader's Figures and the Movement of History The article discusses the recent Yves Cohen's book, Le siècle des chefs. It points first the scope of the book that succeeds, in a very original and highly informative manner, to identify a central historical movement in the twentieth century : the emergence and development in multiple countries (France, Germany, Soviet Union, USA) of a “collective concern” for the figure of the leader. The article then discusses the contributions and limitations of an approach that identifies behind the variety of formulas developed to address this collective concern, a new form of power, in Foucauldian sense. The article finally examines the pragmatics of command developed in the book and specifies the perspectives opened at the crossroads of history and other social sciences.

Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Sociology : A Different Viewpoint on the Origins of Modern Politics In a recent book, the philosopher Bruno Karsenti offers a reinterpretation of the study that Sigmund Freud, at the end of his life, has devoted to the figure of Moses and to the question of the origins of monotheism. This rereading leads him to outline, about a basic idea of modern politics, i.e. the people, a genealogy alternative to those that focus on the Greek notion of demos. It also leads him to discuss the theory that Freud develops on the psychosocial mechanisms (repetition and refoulement in particular) ensuring the transmission of traditions. From these analyzes, we propose a sociologically oriented and therefore deliberately offset reading. One wonders what consequences for the investigative work of the sociologist may have three central insights offered by the book : the first one concerns the role of transcendence in the organization of political relationships within modern societies ; the second one is about the function of the legal codification in the processes of legitimization in force in the same societies ; the last one is on the limits of the psychoanalytic approach regarding to explain the genesis of religious ideas.