Reviews for The French Revolution, 1787-1799

The average rating for The French Revolution, 1787-1799 based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-02-12 00:00:00 Remigiusz Bojdys Albert Soboul, Fransız devrimini klasik Marksizm çerçevesinden değerlendiren bir tarih sunmuş. Alanın klasiklerinden. Fransız Devrimi'ne ilişkin Marksist tarih vs. Revizyonist tarih tartışmasının merkezindeki metinlerden biri. Kitabın yazarı Nazi işgali altındaki Fransa'daki direnişe destek olduğu için üniversitedeki görevinden uzaklaştırılmış, tescilli bir sosyalist. Yazarın geldiği gelenekten kaynaklı olarak oldukça akıcı, anlaşılır bir giriş metni. Sınıflar arasındaki mücadeleyi, Jakobenleri, yıkılmaya mahkum çelişkili ideolojilerini, Termidor karşı-devrimini, burjuva iktidarın kuruluşunu ve Napolyon'un adım adım gelişini güzel aktarmış. Marx'ın da düşünsel dayanaklarından biri olan "Fransız Sosyalizmi"nin kökenlerini hep merak ederdim. Kitapta Babeuf ve arkadaşlarının komünist devrim girişimini ve başarısız olmalarının ardından idam edilişlerini anlattığı bölümler ayrıca ilginç ve coşku vericiydi. İçerik açısından yanlışlarını doğrularını eleştirebilecek bir bilgi birikimine sahip değilim. Ancak biçimsel olarak kronolojiye çok fazla yaslandığını ve fazlasıyla meclis ve hükümet odaklı bir tarihsel anlatım sunduğunu gözlemledim. Fransız Devrimi'ndeki ideolojik mücadele alanını da başka çalışmalar okuyarak doldurmak gerekiyor, çünkü kitapta pek yok.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-02-17 00:00:00 Brian Farmer It took me ten months of consistent, grinding effort to read this book. I found it to be one of more difficult and time consuming books that I've ever read. My patience was not really rewarded. The only reason I read it is because I want to read everything about the French Revolution, and this book contains information that is simply too boring to appear elsewhere. I learned all about the economy of prerevolutionary France and the various ways that the assignat and bread maximums did not work. He is also the only historian I've read yet that weights all parts of the Revolution so evenly that he gives equal time to the White Terror, which is usually overshadowed by the regular Terror. He also made it to page 525 before I found a mistake, which is some kind of record. I feel that he misinterprets Napoleon's intentions towards England, but honestly, SFW? 525 pages of closely-reasoned single-spaced nonstop dates and names, I don't mind if he misses a motivation. I have no idea how anyone expected to read this book before Wikipedia. It was clearly meant for people who already knew everything in it. I guess you were supposed to attack it with a biographical dictionary in one hand, either that or you were supposed to be a student in one of Soboul's classes. If his intention is to impress me that he knows everything about the French Revolution, mission accomplished. You were smart, Dr. Soboul. Congratulations. I, on the other hand, had to resort to the internet every third sentence, because he never explains who he's talking about or why. He mentions Condorcet several times, but never tells you why he thinks he was important until exactly four pages from the end. I cannot imagine that many Americans besides myself ever made it to four pages from the end, so it was sort of a waste to ship the book all the way over here from Mr. Condorcet's point of view. There is just no good reason to write text this dense. As I said, I read it because I was desperate for the information and determined. Nobody else is even interested in the French Revolution at all. I honestly can't imagine why anyone would pick this book up. It's a total failure as an introductory source, because he simply assumes that you know the subject perfectly. It should be read after reading twenty or thirty other books, when you are so curious about the details of Babeuf's Conspiracy of Equals that you just can't wait any more. His economics are intriguing. I am no economist, but I must admit that I never found Necker's portion of the story clearer than here. Soboul also really liked that dashing young sociopath Saint-Just, who is basically portrayed as Luke to Robespierre's Ben. Revolutionary fervor is oddly forgivable to Soboul, who is rather harshly disposed to writing off huge segments of the French population, and not the ones you'd think. Of all the historians I've read, he's the one with the most pragmatic/psychopathic view of the Terror, and discusses its effectiveness and efficiency with the calm precision of a Mafia boss. It was at this time, and when reading his barely-concealed panegyrics for Babeuf, that I was most uncomfortably aware that Soboul had a very militant view of life and social warfare. I can't say whether it was his prejudices or mine, but I must admit that for the first time in my studies of the French Revolution, while reading about the jeunesse dorée and the White Terror, I was moved to get a rifle and a time machine and put some holes in some ancient fools. Wow were those guys jerks. They say this guy pioneered social history, or "history-from-below," and I don't know if that's true or not. It does seem to me that this is a modern history written in an old-fashioned style, so perhaps that is true. He also switches back and forth between regular dates like January and April and revolutionary dates like Thermidor and Nivose completely at random, which is FUCKING OBNOXIOUS. HERE IS A HINT FOR ENGLISH WRITERS ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: you are already translating Septembre into September, so go a-fucking-head and translate Fructidor into September too. For the sake of fuck, it is so annoying.