Historiography of the French Revolution 2
- Created by: Alasdair
- Created on: 28-05-18 20:32
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- Historiography of the French Revolution 2 (https://lycfrenchrevolution.wikispaces.com/file/view/Historiography+Taylor.pdf)
- Classic View
- Originally C19th republican-democratic view put forward by one of great French historians of Revolution, Michelet, in 1840s and 1850s
- Just before WW1, became mainly French Marxist or socialist interpretation
- Broadly sympathetic to Jacobins
- pain was necessary and Jacobins took on job of organising Terror because it was a dirty job but someone had to do it
- suggests Revolution was largely progressive event that moved social and political ideas forward by overthrowing feudal regime which was in decline
- Rationalism of Enlightenment, it argues, was theoretical foundation for liberation of 'the People' from irrational superstition, privilege and corruption
- The Marxists
- Writers like Lefebvre, Jaurez, Mathiez and Souboul
- later re-interpreted Revolution as not merely a popular revolt against old regime but as part of ongoing class struggle
- Bourgeoisie
- was reacting against fading and bankrupting regime to give themselves more space for capitalistic development (trade and industry)
- found temporary allies in working class of Paris who wanted equality, and with peasants who had been hurt in 1788 harvest failure
- Terror was desperate response to war, to inflation, to subsequent popular discontent and to conscription
- Robespierre was revolutionary hero who maintained his ideals in time of turmoil (Mathiez), much like Lenin
- Revolutionary regime needed support from sans-culottes through these crises but once events had settled, bourgeois and working class interests different from Robespierre reining in sans-cullottes - to their despair
- To come up with this point of view, Lefebvre and Souboul both studied archives
- Lefebvre found peasants were not single group but consisted of various groups, some of whom actually opposed each other
- Souboul found that sans-cullottes had made Revolution more radical than had originally been envisaged by bourgeois reforms and were then crushed in the Terror
- French Revisionists
- French Marxist historians had rejected Cobban-Taylor view
- Francois Fu ret
- Revolution was indeed progress because it did lead to Enlightenment style equality and democracy
- but because it had to misuse force to maintain itself, the Revolution failed to produce liberty
- Along with Denis Richet
- Argued Napoleon could use democracy to gain tyranny because disruptions of Revolution had removed all checks and balances in society and government which would keep tyrants at bay - or at slow them down
- Terror was built-in to Revolution from very beginning
- because, having destroyed early acceptance of differences of opinion, it could not accept any opposition
- Conclusion, French Revolution had seriously lost its way and Jacobins were originators of modern totalitarianis
- French historians opposed Furet's views
- Felt he was blindly loyal to progressivist nature of revolution which they saw as a vindication of radical socialism
- Revolution was indeed progress because it did lead to Enlightenment style equality and democracy
- Post-revisionism - discourse analysis
- 1980s
- View based on post-Habermas examination of language of documents of Revolution
- Old Regime had lost public support because of the way public opinion had been influenced by published writings (pamphlets, books, etc.) prior to 1789
- Post-revisionists saw pre-revolutionary period as important because discourse of that time showed monarchy was already on its way out
- Narrative History - back in fashion again
- Simon Schama
- French Revolution was bloody interlude
- As with Furet, he feels revolution lost its way with Terror
- Simon Schama
- Classic View
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