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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very Well Written,
By David S. Keller (Laurel Heights, Conn) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Paris in the Terror (Paperback)
This book is very entertaining, interesting, and is written with a tasteful style. I suppose that if one concentrates on merely deconstructing books instead of appreciating them as prose works, one would tend to be hypercritical here, as the book does take some historiocitical liberties. Yet, as a professor of Comparative Literature, I have yet to find a works on the French Revolution that my students read with so much interest and enthusiasm as we have here. Perhaps it is the personable nature of his writing style, or his focus on characters and personality more than objective history, but in the final consensus this is truly a masterpiece. I am a bit amazed at negative reviews of this book. I ask these people, could you write better? If so, try it! Then you will find that it is far easier to criticize than it is to complete a works as entertaining as this! Highly recommended! Bravo Loomis!
14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A complex & compelling plunge into seldom-explored waters,
By "chmood" (Atlanta) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Paris in the Terror (Paperback)
It's been perhaps 25 years since I first read "Paris in the Terror". I found it gripping and revelatory: it certainly caused me to make a fresh assessment of the 'revolutionary' movements of the Sixties (of which I was a part), and I read it a number of times before it moved on. As a cautionary tale on the uncertain fruits of good intentions, it is priceless - and it's a ripping yarn, to boot. Is it 'reputable' history? How would I know?Certainly, there seems to be some hostility toward Loomis' focus on the human element in creating & sustaining the Reign of Terror, though the reasons for this are obscure at best. It could be as simple as this: in focusing on the role of human nature in human events, Loomis fails to genuflect before the altar of pop-socialist "realismus", preferring to view history not as a Titanic clash of impersonal forces but as the interlocking sum of the individual passions, choices, and shortcomings of real people struggling with real dilemmas. No-one should be surprised that this approach finds no favor with the professional academics of today, whose priority is the maintenance of their paychecks & their access to nubile females. Professional academic history basically occupies two camps: the "orthodox" view of the French Revolution holds substantially to the pop-socialist view of vast socio-economic forces sweeping away the oppressive debris of feudalism - and in the best Red-Guard tradition, views the excesses of the Terror as a regrettable side-effect of a healthy process of social evolution; the "revisionist" view (as seen by the "orthodox" camp) contends that - given the excesses of revolutionary zeal - the 'Ancien Regime' was the lesser evil. Loomis, IMO, thinks for himself, and carves a middle way through the middens, and comes to the conclusion that good intentions are not sufficient to avoid the descent into hell. In the polarised post-9/11 atmosphere, this is a cautionary tale we sorely need. Consequently, real people could gain real profit from reading this book. And if the reader must read between the lines, well, that's the point of education, isn't it? I don't pretend to be a "scholar", since I'm still breathing, and I certainly don't buy into the myth of objectivity; however, I am intelligent, well-read, widely experienced, and I have no partisan axe to grind. As I said above, my comments on "Paris in the Terror" are based on my recollection of multiple readings many years ago. I got here by way of wanting to find a copy so I can read it again. I think it's a shame this very thought-provoking book is out of print.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Let's get real,
By A Customer
This review is from: Paris in the Terror (Paperback)
I am not sure why this book has generated the hostility and negative sandblasting of its content. It is a highly readable book and seems to me to get closer to the truth of what was actually going on than some over-anecdoted meander that has no point of view and presents nothing as cogent food for thought. Here's an idea for all would be critcs, read another book on the same subject and see if it even comes close to evoking the sounds of smells of revolutionary France as this one does. This work does an excellent job at describing the heated passions of the day and the altruistic hopes of the revolutionists. Yes, Loomis has prejudices, but they are enjoyable to read from an author who cares about his subject deeply. Much better than some dry, withered academic prose which comes nowhere near to having one truly experience the passions and grandeur of the event.
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