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Interpreting the French Revolution

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Francois Furet delves deep beneath the surface of events that shaped the French Revolution as an historical event, to convey what he believes is a need for a conceptual analysis that refutes the "dominant" Marxist interpretations of the 1970's. Furet, who hails from the so called third generation of Annales School historians, was one of a few daring French scholars that attempted to bring political history back into a paradigm that was dominated by social, economic, and qualitative history in the post-World War II decades. Admitting that before any scholarship on the French Revolution can be taken seriously, an historian must first " show his colors,"...i.e....declare his political stand. Endorsing the earlier works of Alexis de Tocqueville and Augustin Cochin, Furet points to the substantial Socialist element that has existed in his homeland, and argues: the one trait that was unique to the French Revolution, was the fact that it was the first experiment with democracy. The result is a valiant political stand but a puzzling historical analysis.The book consists of four essays written at various times from 1971 to 1978. In "The Revolution is Over", Furet counters the Marxist argument that the French Revolution was the model for future Communists political uprisings, or liberations, specifically, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Furet admits there were similarities between Joseph Stalin and Robespierre, Stalin's purges and the Terror, and Napoleon Bonaparte and Leon Trotsky, however, he emphasizes that the "Revolutionary Break" which separated the old from the contemporary French histories, ended at 9 Thermidor with absolute power coming full circle, this time, in the hands of society. In the process, Furet attempts to get to the root of such concepts as: "revolutionary ideology," and it relationship to "plot," and how the opinions of individuals transformed the "conscious will" of French society into conscious acts. In the second part of the book, Furet critiques the standard cause and effect history of Tocqueville and the "traditionalist" political history of the French Revolution as penned by Cochin. These historiographical essays are perhaps the strongest part of the book, and most beneficial to serious students of this era, yet overall, the book can be confusing to readers who are not extremely well versed in the history of the French Revolution. Furet's fragmented literary style (Undoubtedly, much has been lost in translation), and the absence of an index; makes the book exceedingly hard to follow. The author makes a number of interesting points, however, his contentions are scattered and do not flow evenly. Furet admits that the second part of the book was written first and perhaps would have made for an easier read had it been published in that order. Furet gears his analysis to an audience who is highly versed in this topic. Overall, the book utilizes an historical event to make a contemporary political stand against Marxism by a contemporary French historian. Not recommended for the beginner.

Easily the most effective full-frontal attack (agains the then-ruling Marxists) in the long and voluminous historiography of the French Revolution, Francois Furet pulled its scholarly field -- almost in toto -- away from silly things like studying actual people. Instead, Furet chose to focus on a narrow strain of language largely embodied in the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which he believes came of age in 1789 and suicidally pushed the Revolution to the peak of the Terror in 1794.

A rightist attempt at highjacking the legacy of the first modern social revolution, Furet's writings have come under sustained attack in recent years by scholars who have shown the much wider discursive environment (and even much wider than that lived experience) of the Revolutionary era.

Nearly thirty years after its publication, Furet's piece is its own historical artifact, which can be an amusing read as such, but read as well the many more recent scholars who don't find it to be the end of the line...