Spectre of Babeuf
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 180
ISBN-13: 9781608466054
Subjects: Babeuf, gracchus, 1760-1797; Socialists; Revolutionaries; France, biography; France, history, revolution, 1789-1799
Description: "This study of Babeuf as a political thinker, based on an analysis of his extensive writings, and on scholarship unavailable in English, draws out why so many considered him to be a major precursor of the modern revolutionary socialist tradition and goes on to make the case that his ideas have much to teach today's activists. The first part traces Babeuf's political evolution in the context of the French Revolution, the second examines his changing reputation among subsequent historians, and the final section assesses the originality of his thought, showing him to be neither a Jacobin nor a Utopian. This updated second edition features an important new introduction by Ian Birchall, a prolific writer and leading authority on Babeuf, that summarizes Babeuf's historical significance, his ideas, and his practice in revolutionary France."