I agree with Estella about the apolitical approach of Mantel to the FR. It all boils down to commercial, psychoanalyzing swooning about strong male characters, the Revolution represents a sexy, attractive setting to make the emotions run high, to make the conflicts stronger in a context of life-or-death period. I am sick of this neutralization of such an ideologically loaded event. If you see Büchner, Przybyszewska or Rolland, they are ALL ABOUT politics, and that oes not make them less personal, less intereste in the characters of the Revolutionaries. Mantel is not a robespierriste, she has not put forward any convincing political-ideological statement in this respect. She just likes Max, Camille and Georges, the men she would have loved to be.