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The Influence of the Enlightenment on the French Revolution (College)

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Perhaps i am being a little stingy in not giving 'The Influence of the Enlightenment on the French Revolution,'edited by William F. Church, five stars, because it is almost of the nature of a book of collected essays like this, all on the same topic, to sometimes repeat, and some of the essays contradict each other.

The book's title captures the contents of the book; each of the 15 essays advert to one of the most discussed intellectual puzzles of the last 200+ years, how much influence, if any, did the enlightenment authors and writings have on bringing about the French revolution? The two possible extreme answers to this question, that there was zero influence, or that the enlightenment was the sole cause of the revolution, are the only opinions unanimously ruled out. All 15 authors in this book agree that there were varying levels of influence, but some would say more, some less. The majority of the collected essays are from conservatives who destested the revolution, and most of these blamed the enlightenment for much of the scourge, but there are a few essays from authors who, from the more liberal perspective, agreed with the outcome of the revolution, although not approving of its violent excesses.

I found the 13th essay, that of Henri Peyre, to be the most persuasive. He says, although not using this word, that there was a dialectical relationship between the 2 main causes of the French revolution, the misery felt by the French people in the 18th century, and the ideas of the philosophes. Neither of these causes would have caused the revolution by itself. The misery would not have been articulated without the ideas, and the ideas would not have brought about the revolution unless they derived from, and cogently explained, real life complaints. Peyre notes the irony, that although there was certainly some misery for the French prior to the revolution, France was actually much better off than most of Europe, and even better off than in earlier decades and centuries in France. One problem with Peyre's essay is that it refers to the "dogma" and the "tradition" of the ancien regime and the church against which the enlighteners fought, but fails to realize or mention that the enlighteners also had their unquestionable doctrines, and could be every bit as dogmatic as church officials, and that the thought from Pierre Bayle to Rousseau also constituted a tradition.

I also found the comparison of the enlightenment to a religion by Hippolyte Taine to be cogent, one religion replacing another.

All in all, if you are interested in if and how ideas do or do not affect 'real' life, and/or 18th and 19th century European history, this book will be useful.