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Title: Inventing the French Revolution : Essays on French Political Culture in the Eighteenth Century by Keith Michael Baker, Quentin Skinner, Lorraine Daston, Dorothy Ross, James Tully ISBN: 0-521-34618-5 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 26 January, 1990 Format: Paperback |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)
Rating: 5
Summary: Brilliant scholarly history, but a very dense read
Comment: Keith Michael Baker is a highly esteemed historian (previously at U. of Chicago, now at Stanford) of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. This book is a collection of essays that are unified by their subject matter, which can be described as "the intellectual and ideological origins of the French Revolution".
A few of these essays are more historiographical/theoretical in nature. That is to say, they are more concerned with questions of how historians approach this subject and the methods and intellectual tools they bring to bear on it. These are quite smart (and extremely influential) pieces-- and they have a general applicability to the subject of intellectual/ideological history, and not just to the French Revolution. However, like all works of historiography/methodology, the questions they pose are probably not going to be of interest to anybody other than other historians. (That's a pity really, as these are important questions that history buffs, and even just ordinary folks probably *should* take some interest in...)
Most of the essays in "Inventing the French Revolution", however, are case studies of particular ways in which political ideologies were deployed and contested before and during the Revolution. One of the most important of these has to do with the practice of writing history during the eighteenth century, as well as the collection of documents, the creation of archives, etc. Far from being a disinterested practice, Baker shows, the writing of the past was a way of engaging in partisan political debate. There were royal historians who presented the French past in such a way that tended to legitimize the claims of the crown over those of the aristocracy-- and other historians who took the opposite approach. Libraries and archives were creted on both sides to serve as "ideological aresenals" to provide arms to conduct this ideological/political battle, which provided some of the "ground principles" on which the debates that led to the Creation of the Estates-General (and then the National Assembly) and other events in 1789 and beyond.
All in all, this is an extremely smart, thoughtful, and insightful book. However, it is also a dense book. Though Baker writes clearly , he deals with a lot of heavy, complicated, and abstract concepts-- and he treats them with the seriousness and complexity that they require, rather than oversimplifying them. Consequently, this can sometimes be tough reading for those more used to graceful stylists (like Peter Gay). Also, it should be noted that this is a book about the creation of the *ideologies* that were deployed in both the pre-Revolutionary and Revoultionary era. As such, it's a work of intellectual history, and of political ideology in specific. This means that its a book about ideas, their development, and their function in political discourse. Those expecting a dramatic narrative of the French Revolution that includes the storming of the Bastille and bloody guillotines will be sorely disappointed. Finally, in case it's not obvious from this review, it should be noted that this really is a work of scholarship, written by a professional historian, primarily for other historians. Non-historians who know a lot about the Enlightenment and Revolution may still get something out of this if they're thoughtful and patient, but it's *not* a work of popular history, or a work intended to be read by someone who's not already knowledgeable about the general subject.
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Title: Interpreting the French Revolution by Francois Furet, Elborg Forster ISBN: 0521280494 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 24 September, 1981 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
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Title: Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution by Lynn Hunt ISBN: 0520057406 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: February, 1986 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Cultural Origins of the French Revolution (Bicentennial Reflections on the French Revolutions) by Roger Chartier, Steven L. Kaplan, Keith M. Baker ISBN: 0822309939 Publisher: Duke Univ Pr (Txt) Pub. Date: June, 1991 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Origins of the French Revolution by William Doyle ISBN: 0198731744 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: June, 1999 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Literary Underground of the Old Regime by Robert Darnton ISBN: 0674536576 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: October, 1985 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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