All of this can pretty much be intuited from the other phrase: "with contributions from Simon Schama and Hilary Mantel." And yes, they invented that statistic. Not to mention the entire thought surrouding it. D:
I know, it's awful. The only bright side I can possibly think of is that I won't be exposed to it, though that's a pretty meagre consolation; after all, better it were me than someone who doesn't know any better. D:!
I have no idea where they come up with death tolls for these things. If they're meaning guillotined, it's ludicrously high: if they mean overall, including military and civilian and refugee deaths in the Vendee, Lyon etc,and in the revolutionary wars, it's too low, and where's their cut off date? On Monday's 'The Supersizers Eat the French Revolution', they claimed '60,000' died in the Terror (or was it 'the Revolution'?), but went on to say 'even more died in the White Terror' (which I don't think is true, but it was nice to see the White Terror getting a mention! I think it snuck in at the end of the prog so Giles Coren got the chance to dress in jeunesse doree mode with a big stick).
On 'In Our Time' a few weeks ago, the presenter said '900,000' died in the English Revolution/Civil War period: that's the highest figure I've ever heard for that, too - it's normally around 200,000 England and Scotland in war and refugees,famine, disease, 300,000 to 600,000 in Ireland through war, refugees, famine, disease (impossible to verify as no census statistics existed, and highly politicised to this day, so the figure increases depending on how much the quoter hates the English...)
Blowing up the numbers is actually another efficient way of discouraging any political activism in the present. Very clever... (thank you for posting, it is an astonishing piece, especiall the "bureaucrats" sentence - the author paradoxically shares his hate of bureaucrats with Saint-Just who never saw himself as such and left a couple of interesting rant-quotes on this subject, now happily used by the historians of French bureaucracy as intro quotes for their books ;-) Sibylla
Clearly they just made it up, as it doesn't match any statistical analysis I've ever seen, and judging by the rest of that summary, I doubt they're the type of people to consult statistical analyses before shooting their mouths (or keyboards) off. The problem with measuring the number of deaths in the White Terror, as in the "Red" Terror outside of official condemnations and executions is that there are no records. This is especially true for the White Terror, in fact, because the authorities would often pretend nothing was happening. But it's one thing to observe this fact and quite another to start making up statistics in the absence of evidence (or without even attempting to research the question).
When disease and famine enter the picture, of course, it makes it even harder to gage, simply because the connection of those deaths to war and unrest is sometimes tenuous, and unless the people dying of disease and starvation are part of an army, no one tends to care about counting them. (Political considerations, of course, tend to muddy the waters as well--it becomes a sort of issue of "well, I don't know if this is true, but I wouldn't put it past them," which isn't very helpful as far as historical research goes.)
A crackastic post on a youtube video from that HORRIBLE masochist (aren't we all tax-payers?) praise of consumerism - Coppola's Marie Antoinette: 'Napoleon was precursor to Hitler. In many ways, the Napoleonic Wars were the first World War. Napoleon solidified and took credit for the Democratic changes implemented by the ill-fated Queen Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI; Made himself Emperor, and postponed France from truly becoming a democratic nation for decades. With this video and its modern joyous, positive tone, it's upsetting to know that forces that worked for the opposite; Backward, miserable negative barbarism, took precedence.'
Oh Reason.... Not that I like Napoleon, but to see him as the one who destroyed the modernity and democracy Louis Capet and his wife allegedly worked for? I think not even Bonaparte aka the traitor of the revolution deserves an accusation like that...Sibylla
Last time when I was in Paris I was shocked when visiting - de nouveau- la Conciergerie. Its library was full of Marie-Antoinette stuff and even the very museum was slightly changed to give prominence to this VIP resident :-(
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-07-07 09:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-07 10:09 pm (UTC)Methinks the keyword-scanning advert-placing facility is at work - it may come up different every time, though...
no subject
Date: 2009-07-07 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-07 10:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-07 10:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-07 11:51 pm (UTC);_;
"...Not real drama, but cardboard characters speechifying in candlelit rooms."
;____;
"...throws up insights on how revolutions work and the sadism of state terror."
I WILL WEEP FOREVER NOW!!!~~
And where the hell did they take that number of 55,000 -- it's the first time I read it I'm sure of that! Do they make up numbers all the time?
no subject
Date: 2009-07-08 12:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-08 12:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-08 12:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-08 09:40 am (UTC)On 'In Our Time' a few weeks ago, the presenter said '900,000' died in the English Revolution/Civil War period: that's the highest figure I've ever heard for that, too - it's normally around 200,000 England and Scotland in war and refugees,famine, disease, 300,000 to 600,000 in Ireland through war, refugees, famine, disease (impossible to verify as no census statistics existed, and highly politicised to this day, so the figure increases depending on how much the quoter hates the English...)
no subject
Date: 2009-07-08 09:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-08 06:55 pm (UTC)When disease and famine enter the picture, of course, it makes it even harder to gage, simply because the connection of those deaths to war and unrest is sometimes tenuous, and unless the people dying of disease and starvation are part of an army, no one tends to care about counting them. (Political considerations, of course, tend to muddy the waters as well--it becomes a sort of issue of "well, I don't know if this is true, but I wouldn't put it past them," which isn't very helpful as far as historical research goes.)
Oh, Reason, what crimes are committed in your name?
Date: 2009-07-08 03:53 pm (UTC)'Napoleon was precursor to Hitler. In many ways, the Napoleonic Wars were the first World War. Napoleon solidified and took credit for the Democratic changes implemented by the ill-fated Queen Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI; Made himself Emperor, and postponed France from truly becoming a democratic nation for decades. With this video and its modern joyous, positive tone, it's upsetting to know that forces that worked for the opposite; Backward, miserable negative barbarism, took precedence.'
Oh Reason.... Not that I like Napoleon, but to see him as the one who destroyed the modernity and democracy Louis Capet and his wife allegedly worked for? I think not even Bonaparte aka the traitor of the revolution deserves an accusation like that...Sibylla
Re: Oh, Reason, what crimes are committed in your name?
Date: 2009-07-08 06:57 pm (UTC)Re: Oh, Reason, what crimes are committed in your name?
Date: 2009-07-08 07:10 pm (UTC)Re: Oh, Reason, what crimes are committed in your name?
Date: 2009-07-09 02:07 am (UTC)