A book you will all really love - if you don't have it go out and purchase RA NAO

[momesdelacloche.livejournal.com]

It's called "Danton : the gentle giant of terror" - you are already loving it, aren't you? - and it's by David Lawday.
I WOULD have posted some of the best bits - I mean, the descriptions of Robespierre and the comparisons between the two men are priceless - but it has been taken from my college library and rudely put on the New Books display in the Uper Reading Room of the Bodleian. So if you are anywhere near there, go and see it!
I mean.. I don't know how the author knows half of the stuff... I think - my theory is - he secretly discovered Danton's private diary! but he doesn't want anyone else to know he has it, so whenever he uses information from THE TOP SECRET DIARY OF GEORGES DANTON AGED 34 1/4 he just doesn't site any references at all, and leaves us all open mouthed - like for instance, when he tells us exactly what wine Danton and Camille Desmoulins ordered from their favourite café on a particular day, and that Robespierre turned it down for a glass of milk instead. He had previously written about Robespierre had a "feline" look about him (and "joyless eyes" - [here he did site a source, the lovely Michelet]) which partially explains the milk but other than that...
I mean, you have to see this. This guy has discovered something big, I'm sure. He's just not telling us about it.

Here is a review by a respected person on the French Revolution scene here in England: http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/doyle_07_09.html

P.S. Sozzalicious to anyone I sort of intentionally annoyed. I am just like a lowly deputy of the Plain. Nobody up there on the Mountain need listen to anything I say
P.P.S. But do read this book because you will not be able to put it down (without hurling it across the room and foaming slightly at the mouth)(in amazement)!

Comments

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0-0GsggVM8MC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=hampson+doyle&source=bl&ots=fsrybq78j1&sig=pF8Kp06wz8d-BdzVorGJeZOxJXY&hl=en&ei=VaZfSoWNKNerjAemvZ3ZDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

This is a bit off-topic, but about Norman Hampson: I read his biography of Robespierre a few years back, and while I can't remember the details, I don't remember having a particularly favorable impression. (Oddly, what stands out most in my recollection is how unrealistic I found it that the priest-figment was so much more sympathetic to Robespierre than the Communist-figment, considering the actual record on the thoughts of most real priests and Communists. Really, it was a rather round-about way for Hampson to state his agreement with Condorcet's accusation that Robespierre was like the leader of a cult. Perhaps I'm one of the "unimaginative" persons critiqued in that introduction you just posted, but I must admit, I rather wonder why he bothered.)

I got a copy of Hampson's biography of Saint-Just too, but I'm afraid I stopped reading after he referred to him as Lucifer; I just couldn't take him seriously from that point on.

It seems to me, if I'm not mistaken, that you've recommended Hampson a few times in this community. To be blunt (though I hope not rude), I want to ask: why? I am genuinely curious to learn your thoughts on the matter, because I have a great deal of respect for the way you express yourself in this community. So, care to share?

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

I generally like his stuff - he's not florid, he's not writing 'look at me' history, he puts all the facts down on the page, even if he does sometimes make the occasional sarcastic comment alongside. He regards Robespierre as a tragic figure, rather than a monster (that's rare in English historians!), and doesn't simply dismiss him as paranoid - time and again, Hampson reminds readers that there WAS some sort of foreign plot. He has said he finds Saint-Just fascinating, even though he evidently loathes him (though in the secular English tradition, comparing someone to Lucifer carries Miltonic connotations, rather than simply biblical). Unlike most modern historians, he's lived through experiences of a similar intensity to the ones he writes about - though got more right-wing as he got older. He reminds me of the donnish Hector in Alan Bennett's The History Boys, who is of a generation swept away to make way for the flashy style of Irwin (based, I once heard, on Schama) - hence those nicely biting remarks about po-mo academe in the intro to the Saint-Just book. 'Life and Opinions' is one of my favourite history books covering any period - it reminds me of disentangling hair, unpicking various strands - in answer to the Doyle point in that intro, I did get the Tristram Shandy reference (my degree was English Lit). Many historians claim their 'story' is definitive, THE history of XYZ - 'Life and Opinions' is a rare beast, in that it admits such a thing is impossible.

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Btw, though every comment I've ever heard on the Irwin character says it's clearly meant to be Schama, Bennett has denied this, saying - get this - Schama lacks the political agenda and 'persistently jeering tone' of the other TV historians, from which I can only conclude Bennett has never read one of his books or seen one of his programmes!!!

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Ha. Ha, ha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA. That's priceless, truly. XD

[lucilla-1789.livejournal.com]

Political agendas have been somewhat obvious in 99% history books I've ever read, both academic and popular. Only, when the political agenda goes to the truly bizarre zone (or is unfashionable amongst the academic world and elite at the moment), people start to notice it.

[trf-chan.livejournal.com]

Btw, though every comment I've ever heard on the Irwin character says it's clearly meant to be Schama

Oh man, really? XD I didn't know that, but it makes so much sense now that I think about it.

[toi-marguerite.livejournal.com]

Ha ha, that's amazing. It's at once facepalm worthy (Schama is unavoidable these days-- he showed up on the American satirical talk show The Colbert Report the other day and mentioned that the Iranian Revolution was like the French Revolution and therefore doomed to choatic failure) and terribly amusing.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

Everything you mention here about Hampson is true, and I can see why you would appreciate him compared to other English historians. I don't really object to the literary style of "Life and Opinions" so much as it's frequent lack of straightforwardness--to fall back on the example I used earlier, I'm nearly certain that what he was trying to say was not that a priest would like Robespierre, but that Robespierre was like a priest, which is not really the same thing. I prefer historians who are upfront about those kinds of things. Also, the sarcastic comments irked me a bit, but I suppose that's rather a minor point.

Mainly, my issue is: Hampson is all right as far as English historians go, but I've read so many French historians that are just a cut above anything I've read in English (with a few notable exceptions such as Timothy Tackett and some French historians who write in English, like J-P Gross), that I don't really have much patience for him--or most other English historians, for that matter.

(Not that all French historians are good--Furet being a, or perhaps the, case in point--or all English historians bad, but one thing that definitely turns me off the latter group is the annoying tendency of many of them to write in such a way that says, "I am English. This book is being written from the perspective of an Englishman. Since I'm contractually obligated to dislike the French, let me insert some stereotypes about them or even some jokes at their expense, even though this does not help my analysis in the least. Robespierre was very unusual for a Frenchman, wasn't he? Did I mention that I'm English?" ad nauseam, though obviously, I'm exaggerating to make a point. Typically, at least. By the way, lest it sound like I'm picking on the English in particular, American historians have been known to do this as well--I just happen to know of more American than English historians who manage to avoid it, or at least keep it to their introductions instead of constantly inserting it into the main text.)

By the way, it would make a great deal of sense of Irwin were based on Schama. "It doesn't matter what the truth is; that's not what you're looking for. What you really want is to make a sensation!"

[momesdelacloche.livejournal.com]

This article was very interesting, thank you!

I am now inspired to read his biography of Robespierre... I have read his Enlightenment book before.

I know what estellacat means about English historians but I think it's the way a lot of them are educated and their influences, and not, I don't think, from any real desire to criticise the French on a matter of national principle. The English have just a very strong tradition in the way they view the French Revolution, and my impression is the English and French schools have often ignored each other and probably still do a bit.
I confess I haven't read that many French historians because it's so difficult. I have to use, like, my whole brain to work out what they're actually saying and even then I am left slightly unsure.