A World of Paper: Louis (ⅩⅣ), Colbert de Torcy, and the Rise of the Information State

摘要

Published in 2013, after the death, of John Rule, an expert in the reign of Louis (ⅩⅣ), this book focusses on Jean-Baptiste Colbert de Torcy, Louis (ⅩⅣ)'s last Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Ben Trotter was asked to join as co-author as John Rule's illness slowed his progress on the book. The stated central theme of the book is information: 'its collection, management, and use' (p. (ⅹⅴ)). Rule and Trotter outline at the start how bureaucracy has long been seen as the foundation of the modern state, and the reign of Louise (ⅩⅣ) as a model for the development of such bureaucracy. The book aims to examine in detail the administrative department effectively created by Colbert de Torcy with the object of showing how this bureaucracy evolved 'in the interplay of policy, the cultivation of loyal personnel, and growing governmental power' (p. 3). As the authors also point out, it also shows 'the importance of information and especially its collection and control', and they situate the book in the new literature of information history. They do this through a study anchored in archival sources, through the lens of the Department of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, particularly during the tenure of Torcy, from 1696 to 1715.