The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life by Sophia Rosenfeld

much of his read ers.The struc ture of the book is intri cate and could prob a bly have been improved some what from the French orig i nal, and the intro duc tion, in par tic u lar, is a bit unfo cused.Orain's work and meth od ol ogy is highly orig i nal and inno va tive, and it would have been use ful to have it presented in more detail at the begin ning of the book.One of the book's most com pel ling aspects is Orain's use of lit er ary works to illu mi nate how contemporaries under stood and interpreted the System.The Politics of Utopia com pels us to rethink our under stand ing of Law's exper i ment, par tic u larly its deep roots in abso lut ist polit i cal the ory.Orain's most per sua sive argu ment is that the System was not just an eco nomic pro ject but a vision of state power-one that sought to reshape the mon ar chy into an eco nomic levi a than.This is a must read for schol ars of both early mod ern French his tory and polit i cal econ omy and its cul tural dimen sions.Orain's work chal lenges con ven tional nar ra tives and offers a fresh, inter dis ci plin ary per spec tive on one of his tory's most auda cious exper i ments.