Customer Reviews

Mourning Glory: The Will of the French Revolution (Critical Authors & Issues)

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"Mouring Glory" is certainly one of my favorite historical accounts of the French Revolution because it reaches beyond the conventional interpretations of this frightening (but fascinating) period of history. Huet gives the reader an informative analysis of the Revolutionary ideology of the sublime, and an incredibly well researched look into how and why the Revolution's idealistic leaders are portrayed as they are. The author gives insight into the Revolutionary will, and how it has been dramatized and incorrectly interpreted in an effort to remember the Revolution and its disturbing but hauntingly mesmerizing effects.

I very, very much enjoyed Huet's essays on the ideas and the course of the French Revolution from Rousseau through Robespierre and Saint Just to modern interpretations. The book's structure makes sense and Huet's style is always geared toward the readable. Mourning Glory's focus is on the relationships between forces, between nature and law, between the present and the past, between the throne and the people and how the "will" (the intent, the resolve) of the revolution evolved from an ideal of liberty and happiness to the desperate measures of desperate men and finally to the legacy. An amazing book.