The Oxford Handbook Of The French Revolution

This title brings together a sweeping range of expert and innovative contributions to offer engaging and thought-provoking insights into the history and historiography of the French Revolution, particularly its legacies in transnational and global contexts.

An exploration of current scholarly thinking about the wide and surprisingly complex range of historical problems associated with the study of Ancien Régime Europe

This new edition of the most authoritative, comprehensive history of the French Revolution of 1789 draws on a generation of extensive research and scholarly debate to reappraise the most famous of all revolutions. Updates for this second edition include a generous chronology of events, plus an extended bibliographical essay providing an examination of the historiography of the Revolution. Opening with the accession of Louis XVI in 1774, the book traces the history of France through revolution, terror, and counter-revolution, to the triumph of Napoleon in 1802, and analyses the impact of events both in France itself and the rest of Europe. William Doyle shows how a movement which began with optimism and general enthusiasm soon became a tragedy, not only for the ruling orders, but for the millions of ordinary people all over Europe whose lives were disrupted by religious upheaval, and civil and international war. It was they who paid the price for the destruction of the old political order and the struggle to establish a new one, based on the ideals of liberty and revolution, in the face of widespread indifference and hostility.

The French Revolution is a time of history made familiar from Dickens, Baroness Orczy, and Tolstoy, as well as the legends of let them eat cake, and tricolours. Beginning in 1789, this period of extreme political and social unrest saw the end of the French monarchy, the death of an extraordinary number of people beneath the guillotine's blade during the Terror, and the rise of Napoleon, as well as far reaching consequences still with us today, such as the enduring ideology of human rights, and decimalization. In this Very Short Introduction, William Doyle introduces the French old regime and considers how and why it collapsed. Retelling the unfolding events of the revolution, he analyses why the revolutionaries quarrelled with the king, the church and the rest of Europe, why this produced Terror, and finally how it accomplished rule by a general. Doyle also discusses how and why the revolution destroyed the age-old cultural, institutional, and social structures in France and beyond. In this new edition, Doyle includes new sections highlighting the main developments in the field since the first edition, before exploring the legacy of the revolution in the form of rationality in public affairs and responsible government. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

In this miraculously compressed, incisive book David Andress argues that it was the peasantry of France who made and defended the Revolution of 1789. That the peasant revolution benefitted far more people, in more far reaching ways, than the revolution of lawyerly elites and urban radicals that has dominated our view of the revolutionary period. History has paid more attention to Robespierre, Danton and Bonaparte than it has to the millions of French peasants who were the first to rise up in 1789, and the most ardent in defending changes in land ownership and political rights. 'Those furthest from the center rarely get their fair share of the light', Andress writes, and the peasants were patronized, reviled and often persecuted by urban elites for not following their lead. Andress's book reveals a rural world of conscious, hard-working people and their struggles to defend their ways of life and improve the lives of their children and communities.

First published in 1980, this book rapidly established itself as the indispensable guide to what brought about the French Revolution, and to the debates of historians about the issue. It combined a full critical account of recent controversies with a fresh interpretation taking stock of wherethe debate had led. Since 1980 discussion among historians has continued as lively as ever, and has moved in directions scarcely explored at that time. The `revisionist' criticism which destroyed the classic mid-century consensus emphasizing the Revolution's social and economic origins has openedthe way to a `post-revisionist' approach focused on cultural change. This new edition brings the subject up to date with an extensisively rewritten survey of the historiography up to the present day, and a revised interpretation modified in the light of research by a new generation of scholars. It will thus remain the starting point for any serious study of thegreatest of all revolutions, which lies at the root of the modern political world. `important book . . . readable and perceptive analysis', Times Higher Education Supplement `His book is excellent, achieving the rare distinction of being both useful and revealing', Spectator `brief, clear, and thoughtful', Journal of Modern History

Beginning with a discussion of familiar images of the French Revolution, this work looks at how the ancien régime became ancien as well as examining cases in which achievement failed to match ambition.

The Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism comprises thirty six essays by an international team of leading scholars, providing a global coverage of the history of nationalism in its different aspects - ideas, sentiments, and politics. Every chapter takes the form of an interpretative essay which, by a combination of thematic focus, comparison, and regional perspective, enables the reader to understand nationalism as a distinct and global historical subject. The book covers the emergence of nationalist ideas, sentiments, and cultural movements before the formation of a world of nation-states as well as nationalist politics before and after the era of the nation-state, with chapters covering Europe, the Middle East, North-East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Americas. Essays on everday national sentiment and race ideas in fascism are accompanied by chapters on nationalist movements opposed to existing nation-states, nationalism and international relations, and the role of external intervention into nationalist disputes within states. In addition, the book looks at the major challenges to nationalism: international socialism, religion, pan-nationalism, and globalization, before a final section considering how historians have approached the subject of nationalism. Taken separately, the chapters in this Handbook will deepen understanding of nationalism in particular times and places; taken together they will enable the reader to see nationalism as a distinct subject in modern world history.