HIST 390 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Territorial Entity, Cardinal Mazarin, Deconstruction
22 Apr 2019
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Sahlins, natural frontiers revisited: france"s boundaries since the seventeenth. Until ~50 years ago, the idea of france"s natural frontiers was commonplace in french history. Now, the idea of france"s natural frontiers is largely dismissed. Gaston zeller attacked the idea of what he saw as the false idea of natural frontiers. Sahlins aims to reopen the case of france"s natural frontiers as a model of state- building, a model of french identity, and so on. Many invoke the idea of natural frontiers as a de ning feature of france"s geography and history. It served to rationalize french claims of territorial expansion and sometimes determined short-term foreign-policy objectives. The idea of natural boundaries gave shape to an imagine national space, bounded and uni ed, in 17th century france. Distinction between frontiers" and boundaries": frontiers stood face to an enemy, whereas boundaries were lines of demarcation (the limits of two jurisdictions or territories).
