Hum...

[trf-chan.livejournal.com]

I'm supposed to be looking forward to 'Christmas, what I want for' at the moment. I've been looking around for books about The French Revolution, and I was wondering if anyone has opinions on the following:

The Days of the French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert

Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution by Ruth Scurr

Saint Just by Norman Hampson

Vive la Revolution by Mark Steel

Thanks!

Comments

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

I've read the middle two, so I'll try to give a brief critique:

Fatal Purity isn't that bad until the last two chapters, despite its over-reliance on sources written by conservative 19th century Britons. The last two chapters are completely unoriginal and if you want the view of history they supply, you could do just as well reading Michelet or even Carlyle.

Hampson's Saint-Just....well, considering he literally refers to Saint-Just as "demonic," you can see why it might be wise to tread carefully.

As to the others, I don't know, but I hope they're better than most, for your sake, if nothing else.

[trf-chan.livejournal.com]

Oooh, thanks. Definitely passing on Saint-Just, then. o.o Fatal Purity...not so sure. As far as widely available, English language books on Robespierre go 'not that bad' is practically a godsend, it seems. -.-

I did some research on Vive la Revolution, and found out it's written by a leftist, and he mocks Schama's Citizens, which can only be a sign of good (or at least one would hope so).

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

I suppose....after all, you're right about the fact that there aren't many English language biographies--good ones, that is. I mean, I could recommend many excellent French biographies, but English gets more complicated. I haven't read it in awhile, but I would say off hand that the one by George Rudé isn't that bad...

Mocking Schama can never be a bad thing. If you do get it, be sure to tell us how it is!

[tearosefury.livejournal.com]

I've read the Hibbert book, and I thought it was really fun. It's a day to day, political event kind of narrative; like, the French Revolution AS ACTION! Kind of a classical historical narrative but in a very upbeat, entertaing manner.

[trf-chan.livejournal.com]

Sounds neat~ :D Thank you.

[citoyenne.livejournal.com]

I'm actually reading Vive la revolution right now. I haven't read much since I as always read several books at a time, but so far it's good. I think it's very funny, in an objective way, except for his comments to the pictures which are just hilarious in a very stupid way. And it supports and defends the revolution and it's ways, Steel's point of view are not so different from several of the opinions here I believe.

[jesta-ariadne.livejournal.com]

Vive la Revolution is funny. It actually was the first whole book I read on the revolution, a couple summers ago..... and believe it or not, the amusing little character sketch of Camille Desmoulins in there started that whole obsession ^^; Heh. I want to find it again now. I'm sure a lot of the wonderful anecdotes may be a bit apocryphal, and I felt like I still had a lot of factual gaps after reading it (fair enough as my first look into the whole convoluted thing, I suppose!) and of course it's highly highly opinionated... But what isn't?? At least he's very honest about the fact. Main thing is that it is so very entertaining, and refreshing and YES he mercilessly mocks Schama and other people (and Blue Peter!) Which is fun. And it's written by someone who is obviously and admittedly obsessed, and who trawls old bookshops for anything at all vaguely related :) And it has the best bibliography I have ever read ever. Seriously.

As a quite random other suggestion, you should get The Life and Opinions of Maximilien Robespierre (Hampson too), if you haven't already read it.

[citoyenne.livejournal.com]

About christmas gift lists: I randomly walked into one of my favourite bookshops and came over a book called "Liberty - The Lives And Times Of Six Women In Revolutionary France" (http://www.harpercollins.com.au/global_scripts/product_catalog/book_xml.asp?isbn=0007241690), there are two chapters or more about Madame Roland in it and off course it had to end up at the top of my gift list this year. Have anyone read or heard of it?

[maleficent.livejournal.com]

I've just started reading it. I bought it after going to a talk by Lucy Moore & Ruth Scurr (Fatal Purity) over the summer. They were both very good & I'm really enjoying Liberty. I'm not very far in but so far it's been very entertaining without simplifying the events and issues. I rather suspect that Lucy Moore is a fantastic writer.

[citoyenne.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad to hear this! I got the book for my birthday and I've just looked a little bit through it. I adore the beginning though, the way the women are introduced.

[matador41.livejournal.com]

Only three years late but if anyone out there stumbles across this then this might help (?)
Hibbert's a good read but chock full of inaccuracies. Like all revolutionary tourists, it's wham, bam thank you biased 19th-century sources. You're better off with Schama for an overview, since despite his own inaccuracies, it's far better written and full of anecdote
Scurr is good for beginners but there are far better Robespierre biogs out there like the Hampson one (an imaginary three-way converstation between three different points-of-view, very daring and very illuminating). Also for someone who claims such empathy with Max, she's very down on Marat and completely fails to deal with their relationship and Max's terrible jealousy – which later expresses itself with deadly results over Danton. When Marat died, he was so spiteful towards him that he blocked a publication of his works. He also, like Peter in the garden of Gethsemane, denied him three times (more or less) in the Convention.
Hampson, in my view, is an excellent historian even if you dont alwasy agree with him. I have his biogs of Danton, Robes and St-Just and all are illuminating in their own ways. and btw, St-Just was a nasty piece of work. No two ways about it. An adolescent who never grew up. He never had to compromise because he never grew up. He was still only 25 when elected to the Convention. A poseur, with no life experience, who played out his own psychological battles with the lives of thousands of people. Would you want your country to be run by a grim-faced idealistic teenager with no sense of humour? I rest my case. Like Robespierre, he appears to have replaced his libido with po-faced placebo; charity with chastity and a partner with Sparta (see his broken engagement to Le Bas's sister. BTW why is everyone so down on Le Bas, a genuinely honourable man by all accounts, but that's another thread I guess)
Finally Steel: funny, pithy and a good introduction. Yeah, it's full of inaccuracies too but he's a comedian not a historian so that's ok. What I cant forgive him for is crap jokes and luckily there arent too many of them.
For example, he gets the story about Marat's invasion of Talma's home-coming party for Dumouriez completely wrong and calls him "the revolution's nutter" but he is also warm and open-minded towards him and rightly calls him the revolution's most popular leader apart from Danton.
so anyway, that's my golden louis for what it's worth
happy reading
and here's two of my own for a really good overview:
Eric Hobsbawn's The Age of Revolution
and
JF Bosher's The French Revolution