Department of History | The University of Chicago

The University of Chicago
Department of History
1126 E. 59th Street, Mailbox 116
Chicago, IL 60637
(773) 702-2631 -- Office
(773) 702-7550 -- Fax
Email: cheney@uchicago.edu

Field Specialties
French History; The Enlightenment; French Revolution; The Atlantic World; History of Political Thought; and the Origins of Capitalism in World-Systems Perspective.

Biography

Paul Cheney is an historian of Europe with a specialization in eighteenth-century France. Before beginning his PhD training in history at Columbia University, he studied political economy at the New School for Social Research. He has taught at Columbia University, The European College of Liberal Arts (Berlin) and The Queen's University of Belfast.

Broadly, his field of interest is the contextual study of social and political thought. In a recent series of articles and in a forthcoming book, he explores how eighteenth-century writers approached what is now termed globalization. How, they asked, was the outward extension of European commerce-particularly into the periphery of its Atlantic colonial establishments-inwardly transforming the material, cultural and political world of Europe?

He is currently at work on two projects: a series of articles on scientific and administrative practices in the French Antilles; and a book-length study on court capitalism in eighteenth-century France.

Publications

Revolutionary Commerce: Globalization and the French Monarchy (Harvard University Press). In press: forthcoming Spring 2010.

"A False Dawn for Enlightenment Cosmopolitanism? Franco-American Trade during the American War of Independence," The William and Mary Quarterly, third series, vol. LXIII (July 2006), pp. 459-484.

"Finances, Philosophical History and the 'Empire of Climate': Enlightenment Historiography and Political Economy," Historical Reflections 31, no. 1 (2005), pp. 141-67.

"Les économistes français et l'image de l'Amérique: l'essor du commerce transatlantique et l'effondrement du 'gouvernement féodal,'" Dix-huitiéme siécle, no. 33 (2001), pp. 229-243.

"Constitution and Economy in David Hume's Enlightenment," in David Hume's Political Economy, eds. Margaret Schabas and Carl Wennerlind (London: Routledge, 2008).

"Lumiéres écossaises," Dictionnaire électronique Montesquieu [En ligne].

"Du genre à la méthode : l'histoire du commerce en économie politique," Commerce, population et société autour de Vincent Gournay (1748-1758) (éditions INED). Forthcoming, 2010.

“The Colonial Machine Dismantled: Knowledge and Empire in the French Atlantic,” co-authored with Loïc Charles. Under Review.

“Bordeaux / Glasgow: The Port City as Intellectual Milieu." Under Review.

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Paul Cheney

Assistant Professor of Modern European History
Ph.D. Columbia University 2002