Bad Imitators of the Ancients, or, the Depth of Harvardian Analysis

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

Harvard has just published a book called The Classical Tradition which includes a chapter by M.Sellers called "Classical Influences on the Law and Politics of the French Revolution". Masochists may download in from the SSRN. I will just add that, in my opinion, the abstract is a bunch of all sins a historian or anyone approaching history may commit. Moreover, these "sins" have very strong ideological implications. And I cannot but laugh at "transatlantic successes", I mean, Soviet propaganda wouldn't express it better XD 


The abstract provided by the author is extremely eloquent:
Abstract:     
The French Revolution was the last great political event to take its inspiration, iconography and institutions primarily from classical antiquity. French revolutionaries depended heavily on Roman and Greek history for ideas, and for the courage to apply them. But even if their understanding of history had been accurate (it seldom was) French politicians could never settle which ancient model to follow. Classical antiquity provides innumerable conflicting moral and political examples and the French came close to having tried them all, running through the whole of Roman history in fifteen years. Eighteenth-century Frenchmen postured as Romans, Athenians and Spartans, without ever achieving liberty against arbitrary power, or any consistent rule of law. The French Revolution’s ostentatious classicism, comprehensive experimentation, and obvious failure, discredited Roman and Greek antiquity as practical models for political reform. Future revolutions would need new models, including the experience of France itself, and the transatlantic successes of the United States of America. The French Revolution discredited classical antiquity, by following it too capriciously, too blindly and to the bitter end.

 Keywords: classical tradition, French Revolution, French republic, Roman republic, Sparta, Athens, neo-classicism, constitutionalism, liberty, rule of law, separation of powers, Rousseau, Constant, Robespierre
(see: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1437165)

Comments

[endoftheworld98.livejournal.com]

...That abstract. Was it written by a high schooler? Terrible.

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah. it's supposed to be written by a professor whose books are published by Harvard University Press. Oh yeah. Let me cry out loud: Long live continental European historians of the French revolution (and Rudé and Peter Jones)!

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

Well, and long live the old generation US historians, too, one must not forget the two Palmers and other random guys and chicks who worked on the French Revolution because they liked it, not in order to prove the wonderfulness of the American one by contrast :-)

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

My brain. D: It's like he stole my thesis idea and perverted it to unrecognizability. D: The way the Revolutionaries used Classical references are diverse and contradictory and multi-layered. And Revolutionaries do not just try on different Classical models like hats!

(Also, that "transatlantic successes" line really makes me want to beat him over the head with Losurdo and see if any of it sticks. Ëtre suprême, that was a brilliant book. I wish I could translate it. D:)