A people's history of the French Revolution
By: Eric Hazan ; translated by David Fernbach
Contributors: Fernbach, David, translator
Edition: Paperback edition.
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 432
ISBN-13: 9781781689844
Subjects: History
Other titles: French Revolution
Work titles: Histoire de la Révolution française
Description: "The assault on the Bastille, the Reign of Terror, Danton mocking his executioner, Robespierre dispensing a fearful justice, and the archetypal gadfly Marat -- the events and figures of the French Revolution have exercised a hold on the historical imagination for more than 200 years. It has been a template for heroic insurrection and, to more conservative minds, a cautionary tale. In the hands of Eric Hazan, author of The Invention of Paris, the revolution becomes a rational and pure struggle for emancipation. In this new history, the first significant account of the French Revolution in over twenty years, Hazan maintains that it fundamentally changed the Western world -- for the better. Looking at history from the bottom up, providing an account of working people and peasants, Hazan asks, how did they see their opportunities? What were they fighting for? What was the Terror and could it be justified? And how was the revolution stopped in its tracks? The People's History of the French Revolution is a vivid retelling of events, bringing them to life with a multitude of voices. Only in this way, by understanding the desires and demands of the lower classes, can the revolutionary bloodshed and the implacable will of a man such as Robespierre be truly understood." -- Publisher's description
Notes: English language edition first published by Verso in 2014.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Translated from the French.
Table of contents: title: How things stood : France under Louis XVI; title: Towards the Estates-General : Impending bankruptcy, the rebellion of the Parlements, provincial disturbances, elections; title: May to September 1789 : The Estates-General, the Constituent Assembly at Versailles; title: the Tennis Court Oath, the storming of the Bastille, the Great Fear, the night of 4 August, the Declaration of Rights; title: October 1789 to July 1790 : The Constituent Assembly in Paris; title: the journées of 5 and 6 October, the clubs, administrative reorganization, the Fête de la Fédération; title: July 1790 to September 1791 : The Nancy massacre, the flight to Varennes, the massacre on the Champ-de-Mars, repression; title: October 1791 to June 1792 : The Legislative Assembly moves toward war, the duel between Brissot and Robespierre, the first defeats; title: June to August 1792 : The journée of 20 June, the Brunswick Manifesto, the taking of the Tuileries, the end of the monarchy, the September massacres; title: September 1792 to January 1793 : The opening of the Convention; title: Valmy, the proclamation of the republic, the clash between Gironde and Montagne, the trial and execution of the king; title: October 1792 to June 1793 : From victory to defeat, the declaration of war against England and Spain, the insurrection in the Vendée, the fall of the Gironde; title: June to October 1793 : The 'federalist' uprisings, the Committee of Public Safety, the assassination of Marat, the Enragés and the popular movement, the general maximum; title: October to December 1793 : Trial and execution of the Girondins, the Wattignies victory, the end of the Vendée war, the repression; title: Autumn 1793 : Dechristianization, the cultural revolution of year II, the Frimaire reversal; title: Brumaire to Germinal Year II / November 1793 to April 1794 : The 'foreign plot', the fall of the 'factions': trial and execution of the Cordeliers and Dantonists; title: April to July 1794 : the dramas of Germinal and Thermidor; title: Epilogue: The meaning of 9 Thermidor.