This book brilliantly combines archival research with insights from gerontological theory to explain how civil servants in post-Revolutionary France innovated a right to government-funded old-age retirement. This retiring vanguard left a surprisingly rich archive, revealing how they experienced old age. The self-definition of these men and their widows paved the way for twentieth-century concerns about old-age pensions, generational conflict, distributive justice, and the importance of life review. This is a beautiful book that realizes the full potential of crossing disciplinary boundaries between history and gerontology. * Corinne Field, Associate Professor of Women, Gender & Sexuality, University of Virginia * How did old-age pensions go from a form of charity to a legally recognized right? David Troyansky uses a remarkable collection of nineteenth-century documents to show how French magistrates argued that, even if they had served many of the country's changing regimes, they and their families deserved support when they were too old to work. Troyansky's imaginative research sheds light on issues that are still central in our own societies, with their aging populations. * Jeremy D. Popkin, William T. Bryan Chair of History, University of Kentucky * David Troyansky has written a wonderfully lucid, instructive, and sensitive study that illustrates changing conceptions of the life course, of old age, and of the state's social responsibilities in a time of political turmoil. Based on rich documentation, it sheds fascinating new light on the origins of the modern welfare state. This is a book that will be of great interest to anyone working on the history of modern Europe. * David Bell, Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Professor, Department of History, Princeton University *
