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Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre Hardcover – March 23, 2014

by Jonathan Israel (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars 12 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 888 pages
  • Publisher: Princeton University Press (March 23, 2014)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0691151725
  • ISBN-13: 978-0691151724
  • Product Dimensions: 3 x 6 x 9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #478,121 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsEnlightenment Rehabilitated
By H. F. Gibbard on July 20, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
In his massive, three-volume study of the Enlightenment (Radical Enlightenment, 2001; Enlightenment Contested, 2009; and Democratic Enlightenment, 2011), Jonathan Israel argued that it was the radical thinkers of the Enlightenment who laid the foundation for our modern values of democracy, freedom, and human rights. Israel identified these radical thinkers by their adherence to three principles: "one-substance monism," (a philosophical idea that the world is composed of a single substance); democracy; and sweeping egalitarian social reform. According to Israel, these radical enlighteners traced their philosophical principles to the Seventeenth-Century Dutch philosopher Benedict de Spinoza.
If we accept his idea that the Radical Enlightenment philosophers were heavily involved in bringing about the French Revolution, we encounter a contradiction. Far from leading to democracy, freedom, and human rights, the French Revolution culminated in terror, violence, murder, and intolerance. Counter-Revolutionary thinkers later persuaded most historians and the public that the Terror was a natural outgrowth of Radical Enlightenment philosophy. How to reconcile the theory of the Radical Enlighteners with what actually occurred during the Revolution?
That is the purpose of this book. Israel wants to distance what he calls the "democratic republicans"--those who believed in democratic values and the Radical Enlightenment--from both the royalist elements (ultra-conservative and more moderate constitutional monarchists) and the "authoritarian populists." According to Israel, the authoritarian populists, represented by people like Robespierre and Marat, were responsible for the Terror. They were proto-fascists who never had much use for the Enlightenment values to begin with.Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starsAn impressive achievement -- but one that worships its subject.
By k on September 22, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
Jonathan Israel's "Revolutionary Ideas" is a sterling example of a type of scholarship that today is a bit out of fashion -- it is what the guild of historians used to call "Intellectual History." What this means is that Israel takes ideas seriously. This approach, one that flourished in the 1950s and 1960s, is now a bit passe', what with the current fixation on gender and ethnicity in history along with a generous dollop of low-voltage Marxism. His book reminded me of Perry Miller's epochal work on the Puritans ("The New England Mind") more than seventy years ago for Miller, like Israel, respected the intellectual integrity of the writings with which he dealt and did not see them as mere protective coloration for some deeper motivation of which those involved were unaware but today university-trained historians can detect like bloodhounds.

Israel's thesis is that the leaders of the French Revolution, at least as represented in the various assemblies, did not gradually convert from constitutional monarchism to republicanism but were from the very start republican. Among these men the one he most admires is Jacque-Pierre Brissot, the journalist and man of letters who Robespierre eventually guillotined. Brissot is one of those whose republicanism was rooted, says Israel, in the "radical Enlightenment," a term the author does not define but which may be said to represent European thinking (mostly French) from roughly 1750 until the upheaval of 1789. The values of this radicalism, which Israel clearly admires, included greater economic equality, freedom of the press and speech, secularism and honest elections, without the muddle of the estates, and afterwards open and frank discussion for the common good in representative bodies.Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starshistory as the speech of the times
By drollere on July 26, 2015
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
this is a book for those willing to delve deep into the intricacies of the French Revolution, and not the best choice for an introduction to the topic. for those who are deep into the Enlightenment, it is much less informative than Israel's "A Revolution of the Mind." for those who are deeply interested in both the enlightenment and the revolution, it's an absorbing read.

israel's premise, curtly stated, is that ideas matter, and that in the situation of the french revolution, the two competing and fundamentally incompatible ideas were spinozist radical enlightenment and rousseauist authoritarian populism. in brief, radical enlightenment created the revolution; authoritarian populism co-opted the revolution (through vote rigging, crowd coercion and the terror); thermidor retrieved the revolution, only to deliver it to the bourgeois tyranny of napoleon. all that represents an interpretation of history that i find persuasive but that deserves a healthy skepticism based on knowledge of the evidence, which means you have read deeply in the history and understand the tendentious interpretations imposed on it. as far as israel is concerned, robespierre was an unmitigated villain, black to the core and malign in every effect: one might say, in reply, that human nature makes every moral judgment difficult.

all that aside, the great merit of israel's work is that he treats ideas seriously, equates ideas with words, and takes the words of the revolutionaries at face value. this is both a strength and a weakness. the strength is that israel paraphrases many of the speeches, tracts, articles and pamphlets of the period, attributing clearly to author and date of presentation, so that we get a really unparalleled sense of what these folks were arguing, asserting, affirming.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsThe best book on the subject

At least as far as I can say. I've been interested in the French revolution for a few years and in that time I've devoured a fair number of books on the subject, and nothing has... Read more

Published 10 months ago by C. Kennedy
4.0 out of 5 starsWhat happens when you ignore evidence........

This is the the fourth volume of Israel's re-interpretation of the Enlightenment and it's culture and it is by far the most misleading. Read more

Published 10 months ago by John Henry
5.0 out of 5 starsI highly recommend! Some argue his points of view are left ...

This is a fanfuckingtastic read! I highly recommend! Some argue his points of view are left a little too vague, and that he spends too much time villainizing Robespierre, but I... Read more

Published 11 months ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Another fine book by a gifted author.

Published 15 months ago by John E. Banks
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

was a pleasure to read ; 0

Published 16 months ago by barry
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Excellent information that is not widely available.

Published 20 months ago by Pereira
5.0 out of 5 starsSuperior survey of the French Revolution

To fully appreciate this book, you optimally should have read something on the French Revolution: come on, Americans: at least A Tale of Two Cities! Read more

Published on August 17, 2014 by Phebe
4.0 out of 5 starswhat a marvelous guide to the revolution

what a marvelous guide to the revolution. i have read for years, but never quite followed the intellectual twists and turns that occurred a s the various phases of the revolution... Read more

Published on May 6, 2014 by Joel C. Jacobson
4.0 out of 5 starsRevolution in the making

I was excited to have a chance to read this author's account of a too distant past event that had such monumental affects on history. Read more

Published on May 1, 2014 by Oma L Rose

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