The Court Society by Norbert Elias

This classic study of the life of the nobility at the royal court of France, especially under Louis XIV, has long been out of print. Recognised by historians as the benchmark for studies of early modern courts, which were an important but long neglected phase in the growth of the 'civilising' constraints imposed on people in increasingly complex networks of interdependence. Elias shows how courtiers - and finally even the king himself - were entrapped in a web of etiquette and ceremonial, how their expenses, even down to details of their houses and households, were dictated by their rank rather than their income. Includes appendix on the parallels between factional competition at the royal court and within Hitler's regime. Originally published in German in 1969 as Die hofische Gesellschaft.