A People's History of the French Revolution

by Eric Hazan, David Fernbach (Translator)

Overview

Discover French history as you’ve never read it before in this bold account of the French Revolution from the perspective of the lower classes.

This blow-by-blow narrative busts pervasive myths and reveals how the French Revolution shaped the Western world.

The assault on the Bastille, the Reign of Terror, Danton mocking his executioner, Robespierre dispensing a fearful justice, and the archetypal gadfly Marat—the events and figures of the French Revolution have exercised a hold on the historical imagination for more than 200 years. It has been a template for heroic insurrection and, to more conservative minds, a cautionary tale.

In the hands of Eric Hazan, author of The Invention of Paris, the revolution becomes a rational and pure struggle for emancipation. In this new history, the first significant account of the French Revolution in over twenty years, Hazan maintains that it fundamentally changed the Western world—for the better.

Looking at history from the bottom up, providing an account of working people and peasants, Hazan asks, how did they see their opportunities? What were they fighting for? What was the Terror and could it be justified? And how was the revolution stopped in its tracks? Hazen offers a vivid retelling of events, bringing them to life with a multitude of voices. Only through the people can we fully understand the legacy of French Revolution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781781685907
Publisher:	Verso Books
Publication date:	09/16/2014
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	64,752
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Eric Hazan is the founder of the publisher La Fabrique and the author of several books, including Notes on the Occupation and the highly acclaimed Invention of Paris. He has lived in Paris, France, all his life.

Table of Contents

Preface 9

1 How Things Stood

France under Louis XVI 13

2 Towards the Estates-General

Impending bankruptcy, the rebellion of the Parlements, provincial disturbances, elections 37

3 May to September 1789

The Estates-General, the Constituent Assembly at Versailles - the Tennis Court oath, the storming of the Bastille, the Great Fear, the night of 4 August, the Declaration of Rights 57

4 October 1789 to July 1790

The Constituent Assembly in Paris - The journées of 5 and 6 October, the clubs, administrative reorganization, the Fête de la Fédération 85

5 July 1790 to September 1791

The Nancy massacre, the flight to Varennes, the massacre on the Champ-de-Mars, repression 119

6 October 1791 to June 1792

The legislative Assembly moves towards war, the duel between Brissot and Robespierre, the first defeats 145

7 June to August 1792

The journée of 20 June, the Brunswick Manifesto, the taking of the Tuileries, the end of the monarchy, the September massacres 163

8 September 1792 to January 1793

The opening of the Convention - Valmy the proclamation of the Republic, the clash between Gironde and Montagne, the trial and execution of the king 193

9 October 1792 to June 1793

From victory to defeat, the declaration of war against England and Spain, the insurrection in the Vendée, the fall of the Gironde 217

10 June to October 1793

The federalist' uprisings, the Committee of Public Safety, the assassination of Marat, the Enragés and the popular movement, the general maximum 255

11 October to December 1793

Trial and execution of the Girondins, the Wattignies victory the end of the Vendée war, the repression 287

12 Autumn 1793

Dechristianization, the cultural revolution of year II, the Frimaire reversal 305

13 Brumaire to Germinal Year II / November 1793 to April 1794

The 'foreign-plot', the fall of the 'factions': trial and execution of the Cordeliers and Dantonists 327

14 April to July 1794

The dramas of Germinal and Thermidor 363

Epilogue: The Meaning of 9 Thermidor 411

Index 417

Editorial Reviews

09/08/2014
It's as difficult to understand and capture the narrative of the French Revolution as it was to live through it, but French publisher and editor Hazan (The Invention of Paris) tries his hand in this messy, often derivative work. Its problems are not entirely his. The cast of characters is vast; chronology is strained by the revolutionaries' adoption of a new calendar; and the changing loyalties and positions of participants make a kindergarten seem an orderly community by comparison. But other things are puzzling. Hazan assumes without explanation that the Revolution stretched over only five years (1789-1794), while it can be said to have continued until Bonaparte's coup in 1799. Nor is it clear what makes this "a people's history" as compared to another kind. Trying to free himself of scholarly heaviness, Hazan nevertheless stops for analytical asides ("excursuses"), which jar the otherwise headlong narrative while not lending added authority to the tale. It's hard to have confidence in his facts when he writes that Thomas Jefferson was "chief author of the federal constitution." Translator Fernbach added his own notes to clarify matters Hazan fails to explain and the book's maps are rather crude. A disappointing work. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Amid the intellectual murkiness of the European scene, a few bright flames are burning: as witness the work of Eric Hazan.”
—New Left Review

“Both an evocative narrative of a fascinating period and a passionate argument for the continued relevance of the revolution and its lessons.”
—Irish Times

“A riveting popular history.”
—Tobias Grey, Spectator

“A People’s History of the French Revolution chronicles the 1789 upheaval in all its guillotine gore and popular fury … The combination of bottom-up testimony with quick authorial intelligence lends the history a vivid immediacy.”
—Ian Thomson, Independent

“A vivid, lucid, informative, detailed account of the French Revolution.”
—Reviews in History

“A luminous book … resurrecting, day by day, week by week, the essential moments of this singular epoch, where the most unbridled enthusiasm, tragedy, courage, treachery mingle together … an account capable of dispelling the boredom of previous conflicting accounts. With this book, with its multiple focal points and perspectives, which allow the clamor of the French Revolution to be heard … a new momentum is found.”
—Marianne

“A story of the Revolution which vividly revives the chain of events, marking the rhythm of its episodes and their brutal accelerations, and the phases of calm which succeeded them.”
—Sciences Humaines

From the Publisher