“A documented and strikingly original investigation of the shifting category of libertines which, far from being exclusively associated with nonstandard or abusive sexual practices, has for several centuries also been associated with the stigmatization of personal, individualist relationships to the law.”—Anne Verjus, director of research at École Normale Supérieure de Lyon in France
“A lively, ambitious, and provocative book. Bad Subjects raises a host of important questions through a wide geographic and long chronological exploration of libertinism as a plastic concept appropriated in many regions. In centering sexuality as a key subject for imperial politics writ large and small, Davis offers an innovative addition to our understanding of the first French empire.”—Julie Hardwick, author of Sex in an Old Regime City: Young Workers and Intimacy in France, 1660–1789