a newbie to the revolution.

[take-a-sadsong.livejournal.com]

Hi there! I'm a homeschooled geeky highschooler, and I've always been interested in the French Revolution since I was much younger. I've read only a couple of children's books about the time, but those two have been some of my favorites (I'm re-reading one of them right now), and the whole culture just seems to fascinate me. However, I have absolutely no idea why there was a Revolution other than the commoners were angry with the royals and all that bit. All my textbooks seem to sort of skim the F. Rev., and focus in much more on The American one instead (which sort of makes sense, since I use American texts. :P).

Basically, I'm a newbie who wants to really get into the whole era, but I have no idea where to start. I know there's probably been a million posts on here of the sort (I apoligize, I couldn't find one!), but I really need book recommendations. :) What is a good starting book(s) for the overall Revolution and the Reign of Terror, that isn't too textbooky and boring? Don't get me wrong, I love dates of events and stuff, but sometimes it gets mind-numbing when the emotion of the times gets cut. If there's a huge book list somewhere for the Revolution, that'd be awesome too. The more the merrier. :)

Also, I have to ask: Was Robbespierre as bad as they all say he was? ;)

thanks so much! :D

Comments

[josiana.livejournal.com]

Vive la Revolution by Mark Steel is an amusing and informative book, which is a bit biased in favor of the revolution. It's not completely accurate, but it is accessible.

And no, he wasn't. ^_^;

[tuica.livejournal.com]

i second the recommendation above, though i wouldn't necessarily call it biased for the revolution, but rather not biased against it, which is what most other English-language books on the topic seem to be.

also seconding the "No, he wasn't." evil-bloodthirsty-monster-with-green-skin Robespierre is the mythical-creature result of ridiculous simplification, demonization, lack of understanding, fear, and scapegoating.

[livviebway.livejournal.com]

Mark Steel's "Vive la Revolution" is the Revolution as stand up comedy and while I also recommend it, if you want something a bit more straight history I think my first introduction to the Revolution was Christopher Hibbert's "Days of the French Revolution." I re-read it a few months ago and while I thought it slipped into the little biases here and there, overall I don't remember it being that bad. It's also a manageable size, I think it's a little less than 400 pages. Anyone got any better recommendations for a straight history book?

Once you've got a background of the events, I strongly recommend R.R. Palmer's "Twelve Who Ruled" for info on the Terror. It focuses on the Committee of Public Safety as a whole. I think it's very engaging and readable.

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Another one for Mark Steel here! He's a stand-up comedian and some of his history stuff is also on youtube, though the French Revolution one on youtube isn't that great, because it was recorded at a 'straight' audience event, not his usual comedy club audience, and he seems oddly nervous!

Crucially, you've got to know something about the historian, his (well, they're mostly men!) personal politics and the politics of the regime he was writing under, because the Revolution is still such a controversial event people still take sides, and take sides rabidly (just look at the various reader reviews for books on Robespierre and co. on Amazon!). Norman Hampson's "Life and Opinions of Maximilien Robespierre' is a great, though unusual, book that explores this issue - he has a historian and three characters from different parts of the political spectrum debating Robespierre's political career. A good historian, like J.M. Thompson, will give a source - and note the political bias - for every quote; I like that approach but it doesn't make for a smooth read.

A very recent, so easily available, book, is Ruth Scurr's 'Fatal Purity', which has a lot of faults but is a very readable and colourful introduction to Robespierre and the Revolution for a general reader. It's her first book, and it shows, and she really underestimates the pressure that the wars put on France, which is crucial to understanding the Terror, but it's still a good place to start. If you want the flavour of the times, there are some good books of eye-witness accounts. I can't remember the title of the one I had when I was a kid, but Cobb and Jones "The French Revolution' (a great big heavily illustrated book) is fairly recent so may be easy to get hold of. (Eye witness accounts are like the film 'Rashomon' - you can find the same event described in several contradictory ways! Estellacat has translated Charlotte Robespierre's and Élisabeth Le Bas' memoirs and posted them on this site, so if you are interested in first-hand accounts, these are excellent!).

On your last point, here are a couple of essays fom Hilary Mantel (who wrote "A Place of Greater Safety ' - a long and generally accurate novel of the Revolution) from the London Review of Books. The first is a review of a collection of essays on Robespierre published about ten years ago, the second is her review of Ruth Scurr's book. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n07/mant01_.htmlhttp://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n08/mant01_.html

Anyway, I hope that's useful!
(By the way, Simon Schama's 'Citizens' is terrible! God knows why it's still in print, when so many excellent books are not!)

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Damn links don't work! I'll try again... - http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n08/mant01_.html should be the Scurr review, and http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n07/mant01_.html The earlier article.

[misatheredpanda.livejournal.com]

This is not a history book and by no means am I suggesting that you use it as one, but I definitely recommend the novel A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel (mentioned above, I believe). I read it when I was first becoming interested in the Revolution and to me, it's helpful because it covers most of the major events and the different personalities in a vivid and memorable way. So, say, names and dates and details you might otherwise forget will stick in your mind, which becomes useful when you're studying something more in-depth. Plus, it's just a good book. But again, it's a novel - but as you learn more about the Revolution, it's easy enough to distinguish the fictional elements from the history.

I too recommend Mark Steel. Otherwise - to be honest, I don't have much to recommend, because (it sounds so bad when I say it!) I don't think I've ever read a general history of the Revolution straight through - I guess I prefer to piece together what I glean from specifically focused texts - except for Carlyle, which I would NOT recommend unless you are interested in the historiography of the Revolution, or in 700 pages of thick extravagant prose. (Fortunately, I like both and I secretly think it's a fantastic book - but hardly accurate.)

And as for Robespierre... I agree with the above: no! Of course, you should know that members of this community are generally sympathetic towards him - I'm sure if you asked somewhere else they'd say "yes" - but honestly, whether you agree or disagree with him, he was at least (much) better than he's been portrayed. And personally, though I don't count myself a Robespierriste, I think he was really quite admirable.

[trf-chan.livejournal.com]

For an intro, yeah, I'd echo everyone mentioning Vive la Revolution by Mark Steel, but, as has also been mentioned, it's entirely accurate...mostly, if I remember right, he just relies a bit too much on apocryphal anecdotes and simplifies things a lot. But it's intended to be accessible to the general public, so the latter point is almost a given.

You can find the links to the memoirs mentioned by victoriavandal on the comm.'s profile page (http://community.livejournal.com/revolution_fr/profile). :)

If you read the novel A Place of Greater Safety, I would recommend that you be very, VERY careful with trusting anything Hilary Mantel writes about the Duplay family, Saint-Just, or Le Bas. They've more or less been set up as two-dimensional villains in the book for reasons I can't begin to fathom, so...yeah.

And I would answer with a resounding "No!" to your last question. :D

[cobweb-lace.livejournal.com]

I would second A Place of Greater Safety because it's basically written as a narrative and gives an intimate general understanding of the lives of all sorts of people (of all estates) at the time. However, I, too, would add a warning and tell you to read it first, but back it up with some more traditionally academic books so you get your facts straight. I'd recommend Hibbert here again, and also, if you're feeling as though you're up for it, Simon Schama's Citizens, although in some places it can be quite tough going (and it's very long).

It's very difficult to get an unbiased view of anything in history; everybody's writing ends up being biased in one way or another. The best way around this is to read as broadly on the topic as possible and make up your own mind. :)

[take-a-sadsong.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much everyone for your replies! I'm definitely going to look into Steel's and Hibbert's books, and A Place of Greater Safety sounds really interesting, so once I get a foundation in the Revolution I think I'll get that out from the library too. :)

Thanks again everyone! :)

[citoyenneclark.livejournal.com]

I homeschooled also. I homeschooled through CAVA, aka California Virtual Academy. You?

I highly recommend Mark Steel's book. Its brilliant, the occasional fact error, like for some reason he calls Stanley Loomis, Stanley Cloomis.

[marieclaire08.livejournal.com]

I agree with the recommendations for responsible fiction as a starting place. (Stay clear of Charles Dickens and Anatole France!) _A Place of Greater Safety_ is a fun read while explaining some of the politics really well. It's a bit flowery as a novel, but as history it's great. There's a shorter novel that came out more recently: _City of Darkness, City of Light_ by Marge Piercy. I like it because it's presentation of Robespierre is very sympathetic.