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Entitlement and Complaint explores the history of the right to retirement and the shaping of the modern life course, applying insights from social, cultural, and political history as well as gerontology to retirement dossiers from the post-Revolutionary French Ministry of Justice. David G. Troyansky traces the origins of state pensions in nineteenth-century France, which were increasingly understood by retirees as a right as opposed to a reward. Alongside the empirical data, Troyansky examines the ways retiring magistrates used their written requests for state pensions as an opportunity to engage in "life reviews." Through the analysis of more than five hundred individual dossiers, Troyansky uncovers the personal narratives of those working in a multitude of French political regimes.