Dr. Thomas M. Luckett

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Portland State University
College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
History
Associate ProfessorAppointed: 1992

Mailing Address

Department of History
Portland State University
P.O. Box 751
Portland, Oregon 97207-0751
United States

Contact Information

Phone: (503) 725-3982
Fax: (503) 725-3953
luckettt@pdx.edu
http://web.pdx.edu/~brtl

Qualifications

Ph.D., Princeton University, History, 1992.
M.A., Princeton University, History, 1987.
Licence, Université de Paris IV (Sorbonne), History, 1985.
B.A., Oberlin College, History and English (minor in Govt), 1984.

Expertise and Research Interests

My current research falls into three major areas, listed below. The first two are closely related to each other, as the riots of the French Pre-Revolution coincided with a severe financial crisis of the French economy. The third is an essentially unrelated project involving the re-editing of an eighteenth-century text that describes an important episode in the history of French Protestantism.

- The commercial credit market in eighteenth-century France, financial crises of the old regime economy, and the financial origins of the French Revolution
- Riots in Paris during the French Pre-Revolution, 1787-1789
- The Huguenot Prophets, the Camisard War (1702-1705), "A Cry from the Desert" (published 1707), and the concept of ''fanaticism'' in the French Enlightenment

Other Expertise

Exchange rates at Paris, 1746 to 1800

I have developed a data base of exchange rates at the Paris Bourse on eight foreign financial centers, and have begun to study the relationship between fluctuations in the exchange rate and other economic variablessuch as the balance of trade and interest rate differentials. I hope eventually to use these data to research the financial history of the French Revolution, including the effects of the liquidation of the assignats after 1796.

Industrial Relevance

My research on the Parisian riots that led to the French Revolution may have practical relevance to developing democracies in their relations with the World Trade Organization. Based on my findings so far, my advice is to use bonfires and cheap fireworksto create rallying points for the formation of angry crowds with little to lose.

Keywords

COS Keywords:

Economic History, Economics, France, History, Religious History, Social History.

Additional Terms:

Economic History, Exchange Rates, Financial Crises, Financial History, France, History of Religion, Protestantism, Riots, Social History, The Origins of the French Revolution.

Languages

(Reading, Writing, Speaking)

French: (Fluent, Fluent, Fluent)
Spanish: (Functional, Basic, Basic)

Memberships

American Association of University Professors
American Civil Liberties Union
American Historical Association
Economic History Association
Phi Alpha Theta
Phi Beta Kappa
Society for French Historical Studies

Previous Positions

1990-1992, Lecturer, Princeton University, Social Sciences, History

Funding Received

  • : National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar, 1995 to .
  • : Oregon Council for the Humanities Summer Research Grant, 1993 to .
  • : Melon Post-Enrollment Fellowship, 1991 to .
  • : Bourse Chateaubriand, 1988 to 1989.

Publications

  • Thomas M. Luckett, "Imaginary Currency and Real Guillotines: the Intellectual Origins of the Financial Terror in France", Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques, vol. 31(no. 1), pp. 117-139, Spring 2005
  • Thomas M. Luckett, review of David Stasavage, Public Debt and the Birth of the Democratic State: France and Great Britain, 1688-1789 (Cambridge UP, 2003), H-France Review: http://www.h-france.net, vol. 4(no. 63), Jun 2004
  • Thomas M. Luckett, "Interest", Jonathan Dewald, ed., Europe 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World, vol. 3, pp. 280-283, 2004
  • Thomas M. Luckett, review of Olivier Zunz & Alan S. Kahan, eds, The Tocqueville Reader: A Life in Letters and Politics (Blackwell, 2002), in Pacific Historical Review, vol. 72(no. 3), pp. 435-437, August 2003
  • Thomas M. Luckett, review of William H. Sewell, jr., A Rhetoric of Bourgeois Revolution: The Abbe Sieyes and What is the Third Estate? (Duke UP, 1994), in Kevin L. Cope & Robert C. Leitz, eds, The Eighteenth Century: A Current Bibliography, vol. 20/21(for 1994/1995), pp. 267-268, 2001
  • Thomas M. Luckett, review of Dale Van Kley, ed., The French Idea of Freedom: The Old Regime and the Declaration of Rights of 1789 (Stanford UP, 1994), in: Kevin L. Cope & Robert C. Leitz, eds, The Eighteenth Century: A Current Bibliography, vol. 20/21(for 1994/1995), pp. 277-278, 2001
  • Thomas M. Luckett, "Hunting for Spies and Whores: A Parisian Riot on the Eve of the French Revolution", Past & Present, no. 156, pp. 116-143, August 1997
  • Thomas M. Luckett, "The Debate Over Imprisonment for Debt in Eighteenth-Century France", in Laurence Fontaine, et al., eds, Des Personnes aux institutions: Réseaux et culture du crédit du XVIe au XXe siècle en Europe (Academia Bruylant), pp. 163-172, 1997
  • Thomas M. Luckett, "Crises financières dans la France du XVIIIe siècle", Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, vol. 43(no. 2), pp. 266-292, April 1996
  • Thomas M. Luckett, "'There is No More Money Here': Money Famine and Tax Revolt in Early Modern France", in John Louis DiGaetani, ed., Money: Lure, Lore, and Literature (Greenwood Press), pp. 77-85, 1994

Profile Details

Last Updated: 5/20/2005

COS Expertise ID #367557
Reference this profile directly: http://myprofile.cos.com/luckettt57