THE FRENCH REVOLUTION PROJECT

Beginning in 1789, the French Revolution can be seen as a series of revolts against the oppressive social and political conditions in France. Within a span of less than ten years, France had radically transformed itself. Scholars like FRANÇOIS FURET see the revolution as ‘the torrential birth of democratic politics and ideology’ in which the centralized state is refashioned with far more power and authority than dreamed possible by the eighteenth-century monarchs. We shall try to highlight the various approaches to understand the French Revolution from different lenses.

Historicising the French Revolution, 2008

Three decades ago, Francois Furet famously announced that the French Revolution was over. Napoleon's armies ceased to march around Europe long ago, and Louis XVIII even returned to occupy the throne of his guillotined brother. And yet the Revolution s memory continues to hold sway over imaginations and cultures around the world. This sway is felt particularly strongly by those who are interested in history: for the French Revolution not only altered the course of history radically, but became the fountainhead of historicism and the origin of the historical mentality. The sixteen essays collected in this volume investigate the Revolution s intellectual and material legacies. From popular culture to education and politics, from France and Ireland to Poland and Turkey, from 1789 to the present day, leading historians expose, alongside graduate students, the myriad ways in which the Revolution changed humanity s possible futures, its history, and the idea of history. They attest to how the Revolution has had a continuing global significance, and is still shaping the world today.

2012

This chapter considers the nature of the problem of the origins of the French Revolution, and the major historiographical steps taken to address the issues. It offers a new perspective in its final pages.

Theory and Society, 1984

In thinking about the French Revolution we have it ingrained in our minds that the lower classes, those designated as The Third Estate, the doctors, philosophers, teachers, financiers, merchants, attorneys, as well as the peasants and laborers, rose up against the Clergy and the Nobility in a fit of class rebellion that eventually toppled the Monarchy. Most historians have surmised that the clergy and the nobility were free from taxes and lived lives of luxury, while the commoners struggled for survival, until a sudden eruption in 1789 turned the tide in favor of the Third Estate. This view from the bottom up goes against the grain of historical continuity and gradual change, and argues that a seismic shift occurred in France during the late 18 th century, ushering in the Enlightenment notions of Voltaire, Rosseau and Diderot, and setting the stage for an American style Revolution which cried Liberty and Justice for All and called for all the heads of Royalty to be served on a platter. This would be the Classic interpretation of the commoner's verses the aristocracy, in the Marxist sense, which, according to University of Bristol historian, William Doyle, in his article Reflections on the Classic Interpretation of the French Revolution is the version that Marx gathered from the information given out by the Revolutionaries themselves. Doyle lays out the premises of this Classic interpretation, which he says are not supported by empirical research: The Revolution is the culmination of a long social evolution, itself economically driven. It marks a turning point in economic history: the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The social manifestation of this transition is the defeat of a declining feudal aristocracy living off the surplus extracted from the peasantry by a rising bourgeoisie enriched by capitalism and characterized by moneyed rather than proprietary wealth. The Revolution is thus the decisive engagement in a class struggle in which, at a crucial moment, the bourgeoisie is able to mobilize the support of the masses to achieve victory (Doyle 744).