Jennifer J. Davis is an associate professor of early modern European history in the Department of History and an affiliate member of the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Oklahoma. She is the author of Defining Culinary Authority: The Transformation of Cooking in France, 1650–1830, and presently serves as an editor for the Journal of Women’s History.

“A documented and strikingly original investigation of the shifting category of libertines which, far from being exclusively associated with nonstandard or abusive sexual practices, has for several centuries also been associated with the stigmatization of personal, individualist relationships to the law.”-Anne Verjus, director of research at École Normale SupÉrieure de Lyon in France “A lively, ambitious, and provocative book. Bad Subjects raises a host of important questions through a wide geographic and long chronological exploration of libertinism as a plastic concept appropriated in many regions. In centering sexuality as a key subject for imperial politics writ large and small, Davis offers an innovative addition to our understanding of the first French empire.”-Julie Hardwick, author of Sex in an Old Regime City: Young Workers and Intimacy in France, 1660–1789

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: “Bad Subjects” in the French Atlantic WorldChapter 1: “Among the Savages”: The Viau Affair, 1619-1626Chapter 2: Locating the Libertines of New France, 1632-1765Chapter 3: A Colonial Liberty?: Sex and Race in the Louisiana Colony, 1698-1768Chapter 4: Libertines and S*v*ges: Explaining France’s Defeat in the Seven Years’ War, 1754-1773Chapter 5: A ‘Race of Libertines’: Gender, Family and the Law in France, 1684-1789Chapter 6: Redeeming Libertines: The DÉsirade Experiment, 1762-1768Chapter 7: Racializing Libertines: Sex and the Law of Slavery in the French Antilles, 1763-1789Chapter 8: Aristocrats and Libertines: Disputing Liberties in the Age of Revolutions, 1784-1804Epilogue: The Law and the Libertine, 1814NotesBibliographyIndex

Jennifer J. Davis is an associate professor of early modern European history in the Department of History and an affiliate member of the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Oklahoma. She is the author of Defining Culinary Authority: The Transformation of Cooking in France, 1650–1830, and presently serves as an editor for the Journal of Women’s History.

“A documented and strikingly original investigation of the shifting category of libertines which, far from being exclusively associated with nonstandard or abusive sexual practices, has for several centuries also been associated with the stigmatization of personal, individualist relationships to the law.”-Anne Verjus, director of research at École Normale SupÉrieure de Lyon in France “A lively, ambitious, and provocative book. Bad Subjects raises a host of important questions through a wide geographic and long chronological exploration of libertinism as a plastic concept appropriated in many regions. In centering sexuality as a key subject for imperial politics writ large and small, Davis offers an innovative addition to our understanding of the first French empire.”-Julie Hardwick, author of Sex in an Old Regime City: Young Workers and Intimacy in France, 1660–1789

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: “Bad Subjects” in the French Atlantic WorldChapter 1: “Among the Savages”: The Viau Affair, 1619-1626Chapter 2: Locating the Libertines of New France, 1632-1765Chapter 3: A Colonial Liberty?: Sex and Race in the Louisiana Colony, 1698-1768Chapter 4: Libertines and S*v*ges: Explaining France’s Defeat in the Seven Years’ War, 1754-1773Chapter 5: A ‘Race of Libertines’: Gender, Family and the Law in France, 1684-1789Chapter 6: Redeeming Libertines: The DÉsirade Experiment, 1762-1768Chapter 7: Racializing Libertines: Sex and the Law of Slavery in the French Antilles, 1763-1789Chapter 8: Aristocrats and Libertines: Disputing Liberties in the Age of Revolutions, 1784-1804Epilogue: The Law and the Libertine, 1814NotesBibliographyIndex

Jennifer J. Davis is an associate professor of early modern European history in the Department of History and an affiliate member of the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Oklahoma. She is the author of Defining Culinary Authority: The Transformation of Cooking in France, 1650–1830, and presently serves as an editor for the Journal of Women’s History.

“A documented and strikingly original investigation of the shifting category of libertines which, far from being exclusively associated with nonstandard or abusive sexual practices, has for several centuries also been associated with the stigmatization of personal, individualist relationships to the law.”-Anne Verjus, director of research at École Normale SupÉrieure de Lyon in France “A lively, ambitious, and provocative book. Bad Subjects raises a host of important questions through a wide geographic and long chronological exploration of libertinism as a plastic concept appropriated in many regions. In centering sexuality as a key subject for imperial politics writ large and small, Davis offers an innovative addition to our understanding of the first French empire.”-Julie Hardwick, author of Sex in an Old Regime City: Young Workers and Intimacy in France, 1660–1789

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: “Bad Subjects” in the French Atlantic WorldChapter 1: “Among the Savages”: The Viau Affair, 1619-1626Chapter 2: Locating the Libertines of New France, 1632-1765Chapter 3: A Colonial Liberty?: Sex and Race in the Louisiana Colony, 1698-1768Chapter 4: Libertines and S*v*ges: Explaining France’s Defeat in the Seven Years’ War, 1754-1773Chapter 5: A ‘Race of Libertines’: Gender, Family and the Law in France, 1684-1789Chapter 6: Redeeming Libertines: The DÉsirade Experiment, 1762-1768Chapter 7: Racializing Libertines: Sex and the Law of Slavery in the French Antilles, 1763-1789Chapter 8: Aristocrats and Libertines: Disputing Liberties in the Age of Revolutions, 1784-1804Epilogue: The Law and the Libertine, 1814NotesBibliographyIndex