This is the first study of French theater and war at a time of global revolutions, colonial violence, and radical social transformation. Analyzing France and its largest Caribbean colony (Saint-Domingue), and spanning the Old Regime and Revolution, Logan Connors presents an ambitious, richly interdisciplinary argument, grounded in theater and performance studies, literary analysis of drama, and cultural, military, and gender history. Demonstrating how war and soldiering catalyzed new drama types and fostered theater's expansion into France's geographical and social peripheries, the study also shows how theater emerged as a dynamic space in which military practices could be re-imagined. This major scholarly intervention provides unparalleled insight into theater's engagement with international and domestic war efforts during a transformational period in global history.

‘This is a genuinely rich, compelling, and informative study, which offers an appealing and informative perspective of its own while also inviting future research. The topic has long been overlooked by both theater experts and military historians, yet Connors demonstrates that it is an immensely rich and rewarding line of exploration. His book stands to make an important mark on the fields of both military history and eighteenth-century theater, but it also holds transformative insight for students of the eighteenth century, the Revolution, and colonialism.’

Joseph Harris - University of London

‘Theater, War, and Revolution in Eighteenth-Century France and Its Empire makes a major contribution to Enlightenment and French Revolution studies, as well as to the broader domains of theater history and performance studies. While it expertly exploits the most recent scholarly advances in the arenas of performance practices, gender studies, and colonial francophone world studies, it also proposes an original reading of the interface between the military and theater at a crucial moment in the history of both European war-making and theatrical aesthetics.’

Larry Norman - University of Chicago