In defence of the terror
Subtitle: liberty or death in the French Revolution
By: Sophie Wahnich ; translated by David Fernbach ; with a foreword by Slavojžižek
Publisher: Brooklyn, NY
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Verso Books
Language: eng
Number of pages: 108
ISBN-13: 9781844678624; 9781844679331
Subjects: Politics and government; Terrorism; History
Work titles: Liberté ou la mort
Description: For two hundred years after the French Revolution, the Republican tradition celebrated the execution of princes and aristocrats, defending the Terror that the Revolution inflicted upon on its enemies. But recent decades have brought a marked change in sensibility. The Revolution is no longer judged in terms of historical necessity but rather by timeless standards of morality. In this succinct essay, Sophie Wahnich explains how, contrary to prevailing interpretations, the institution of Terror sought to put a brake on legitimate popular violence-in Danton's words, to "be terrible so as to spare the people the need to be so"-and was subsequently subsumed in a logic of war. The Terror was "a process welded to a regime of popular sovereignty, the only alternatives being to defeat tyranny or die for liberty.
Notes: Original publication: Paris : La Fabrique Éditions, c2003:  La liberté ou la mort.

Includes bibliographical references.