UMass Amherst historian Jennifer Ngaire Heuer is the 2024 recipient of the Society for French Historical Studies’s David H. Pinkney Prize for her book The Soldier’s Reward: Love and War in the Age of the French Revolution and Napoleon, published by Princeton University Press. The prize recognizes the most distinguished book in French history by a North American scholar, in honor of the contributions of David H. Pinkney to the development of French historical studies in the United States.
In this groundbreaking book, Jennifer Heuer paints a vivid picture of the impact of prolonged warfare on the family and intimate relations during the revolutionary era. The Soldier’s Reward brings together a rich collection of military history sources, including troop records, soldiers’ memoirs, and debates about conscription, with cultural history sources, such as music, art, plays, and festivals. The experiences and strategies of individual families are further illustrated in family letters and journals, police reports, and court records. Heuer details how soldiers were promised many things, including financial rewards, patriotic honor, and a happy family life once their military service was completed. The book deftly elucidates what prolonged warfare meant to soldiers and their families. This includes debates surrounding whether soldiers should marry and efforts to encourage marriage following demobilization, such as state-sponsored marriage rituals under Napoleon. The book also tackles the question of female military service and the extent to which women were recognized as veterans.
The Society for French Historical Studies adds that other highlights of the book include rich detail about men’s strategies to avoid lengthy military service, such as petitions for early demobilization and sham marriages. Heuer's expert analysis throughout the book illuminates how soldiers and their families navigated the disruptions of military service amidst a changing political landscape. Heuer’s inclusion of the Restoration period further illustrates the long-term impact of revolutionary warfare on families, notions of citizenship, and martial masculinity.
Describing the book as “important, innovative, and a pleasure to read,” University of South Carolina historian Carol E. Harrison, writes that in penning this book, “Heuer offers new directions for research on gender and the revolutionary moment.”
Jennifer Ngaire Heuer is Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the author of The Family and the Nation: Gender and Citizenship in Revolutionary France (Cornell), and with Mette Harder, co-editor of Life in Revolutionary France (Bloomsbury), and now her new book, The Soldier’s Reward: Love and War in the Age of the French Revolution and Napoleon (Princeton), as well as a variety of articles and book chapters in both French and English-language publications. With Christine Haynes, she is currently co-editor of the journal French Historical Studies.