An English-language version of Markovits’s landmark study of eighteenth-century French theater will be welcomed by specialists in a number of fields and is an excellent addition to the impressive list of Cowen Prize winners, for which eighteenth-century scholars everywhere are grateful.

Until recently, study of the reach of France’s cultural influence in Europe has focused largely on canonical works of literature, forgoing a discussion of other sites of cultural exchange such as forms of sociability—Freemasonry or the salons, for example—or clothing and fashion. Rahul Markovits’s scrupulously researched and brilliantly written monograph further explores the phenomenon of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century French cultural dissemination in consideration of the emblematic case of theater... Reading Staging Civilization is a joy, and Markovits’s book makes a crucial contribution to the understanding of theatrical practices on the French stages of Europe.

Markovits’s book is remarkable, built on a solid research methodology. It suggests how French theater can be approached as an open field of historic research, not only concerning its aesthetic significance, but for its cultural and socio-political implications.