Two hundred years have passed since the French fell into their momentous revolution. Over the intervening period the origins of that upheaval have given rise to a contentious and rich historiography. This book, drawing upon that historiography as well as other scholarship, will develop an interpretation of the French Revolution's genesis that political sociologists might see as a species of “modified structuralism” but which historians might be likelier to describe as “global-historical.” However it may be characterized, this interpretation will focus primarily upon the state rather than the society of old regime France and in particular on that state's converging failures in foreign (or geopolitical) and domestic (or sociopolitical) affairs.

Because, however, this study relies heavily on the writings of historians (and, to a lesser degree, of political sociologists), we need first of all to situate it within its proper scholarly context. To do so can help us to define various issues whose consideration will be central to a fully developed global-historical perspective of the Revolution's causes. We can then elaborate on the organization and substance of the argument to follow and explicate the philosophical assumptions underlying that argument.

The American political sociologist Theda Skocpol has grouped explanations of major sociopolitical revolutions under the headings “voluntarism” and “structuralism.” By citing under these rubrics the chief explanations advanced for the onset of revolution in France, we can establish a frame of historiographical reference and define the core elements of a global-historical perspective.