Tropical Despotisms: Enlightened Reform in the French Caribbean

Tropical Despotisms examines efforts to cultivate a new patriotic community rooted in the Enlightenment principles of honor and civic virtue in France's Caribbean possessions during the period between the Seven Years' War and the Revolution. Following France's humiliating defeat at the hands of the British, a loose coalition of frustrated and enlightened reformers hoped to promote imperial regeneration in order to restore France's wounded national pride, stabilize and strengthen the Antillean colonies, and bind them more closely to the metropole.