James E. McClellan III is professor emeritus of the history of science at Stevens Institute of Technology. He has published widely on eighteenth-century French science, scientific institutions, scientific publications, and science and colonial expansion. Decades ago, from his work on French academies, Jim learned of jetons de presence-little silver tokens handed out for attendance at academy meetings-and he began collecting jetons. Along the way he encountered an unexpected divide separating communities of historians and numismatists specializing in early modern and Old Regime France, and he decided to investigate. He came to see that through the lens of these tiny, almost trivial artifacts from the past, a vast panorama opens up on the whole of society and culture of France through to the French Revolution. This book is the result of that inquiry, proving once again just how contingent the course of historical research actually is.
