Gilbert Shapiro

Gilbert Shapiro and John Markoff have spent over thirty years analysing the entire body of general cahiers drafted by the French nobility and the third estate in the electoral assemblies of the principal bailliage assemblies on the eve of the Estates General of 1789. They have also analysed a representative sample from the parish cahiers published in the "Official Series" of the Commission de recherche et publication des documents inédits sur l'histoire économique de la Révolution française. Although clerical and urban cahiers are not included in the study, the authors have assembled an enormous body of data upon which to base their analyses. The authors have already made this archive available to scholars, and they hope to produce transportable versions with accompanying software in the near future.