
PDF/EPUB | Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre |
By | |
ISBN | 0691151725 |
ISBN-13 | 9780691151724 |
Publication | 20 September 2025 |
Number of Pages | 888 |
Format Type | Hardcover |
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The French Revolution stands once again as a culmination of the emancipatory and democratic ideals of the Enlightenment That it ended in the Terror represented a betrayal of those ideas not their fulfillment Revolutionary Ideas An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to RobespierreThe French Revolution is one of the most important historical moments in Western history if not world history It was the first truly democratic revolution and bequeathed the modern tenets of democratic republicanism Yet much of the accomplishments of the French Revolution have been lost on modern historians as they have looked to social and economic factors to explain why events turned out the way it did Enter Mr Israel.
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Published in the Atlantic Monthly 888 Revolutionary Ideas is the latest in an ambitious series of books in which historian Professor Jonathan Israel has traced the Enlightenment from its beginnings in the seventeenth century to the French Revolution of the late eighteenth century The series began with Radical Enlightenment 2001 continued with Enlightenment Contested 2006 which was followed by A Revolution of the Mind 2010 and Democratic Enlightenment 2011 A single thesis runs through the entire series It is that a set of ideas emerged in the late seventeenth century which Professor Israel identifies as belonging to the Radical Enlightenment as distinct from a conservative.
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In the work of the philosopher Benedict Spinoza and can be traced in the works of Pierre Bayle to Denis Diderot and the Holbach circle in eighteenth century France Now in this latest volume he examines the role of the ideas of the Radical Enlightenment in the French Revolution The book covers the period from the beginning of the revolution in 1789 to Thermidor and the fall of Robespierre in 1794 and ends with the rise of Napoleon in 1799 Israel concludes that Radical Enlightenment was incontrovertibly the one big cause of the French Revolution His search for causes is out of step with a strong tendency among historians to dismiss causation as a valid category of analysis The French Revolution is now often seen as a purely accidental event which scarcely does justice to a phenomenon that altered European and.
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The Terror now becomes the antithesis of the revolution Rather than leading to the Terror the revolution was ended by it The question is how does Israel s theory stack up against the evidence In the first place it must be pointed out that Robespierre was not alone in his admiration for Rousseau Brissot himself was influenced by Rousseau and so were many of those associated with him Robespierre was to a great extent drawing on a common stock of ideas from which they developed political initiatives over time It would not be correct to present either Brissot or Robespierre as emerging with a fully formed ideology or political programme at the beginning of the revolution. Revolutionary ideas of karl marx The conflict between Robespierre and the Girondins began over the question of war Robespierre opposed waging a European war because he thought that it would strengthen the army and increase the chances of a military dictator coming to power His concerns proved to be well founded Napoleon Bonaparte was not the first general to consider the possibility of a military coup Lafayette.
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For small property owners such as shopkeepers and master craftsmen the situation was desperate Those already in poverty faced starvation and even the prosperous were forced into poverty These were the sans culottes the people who wore the cheaper and practical trousers rather than the elegant knee breeches of the upper layers of society They repeatedly petitioned the Convention for price controls on essential commodities such as food and soap. Revolutionary ideas meaning For the Girondins the free market was a matter of principle To interfere with the operation of the market was to infringe property rights They believed that the free market would eventually bring prices to an affordable level if it was allowed to operate without government interference To begin with Robespierre shared their faith in the market After all the regulations of the ancien regime had not prevented famine But gradually he came to a different view and in doing so widened his conception of what equality meant The first social law.
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But Robespierre never controlled it and always had to argue his case with the other deputies Such power as he had depended on his relationship with the sans culottes It was his support among the sans culottes that made Robespierre one of the most radical of the revolutionary leaders To regard him as a conservative is to miss the point He was a radical because he took social equality seriously The Terror has left the most enduring image of the French Revolution It was born out of the military crisis when Toulon fell to the British in September 1793 A counter attack had to be organised but conscripts refused to leave for the front unless they could be sure that their families and the revolution would be safe in their absence An uncontrolled massacre of prisoners and suspects threatened to break out as it had done in the September Massacres of 1792 when the Prussian army was advancing on Paris The sans culottes feared that an aristocratic plot would break out and counter revolutionaries would take power in Paris in advance of the invading armies The Terror was an attempt to prevent a repeat of that spontaneous violence. PDF Revolutionary ideas para It lasted approximately nine months during which some 30.
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000 died in the space of one day when the Russians captured Warsaw in 1794 The largest death toll was not in the Terror but in the war to defeat the royalist uprising in La Vend e A quarter of a million people may have died in this campaign Exact figures are not known but the population of the region did not return to its pre revolutionary levels until the 1820s It could be argued that France experienced its revolutionary war and its civil war at the same time A similar process took a century to complete in the USA Robespierre had very little control over the Terror Outside Paris he had no direct control Members of the Convention operated on their own authority and without reference to any central body It was an anarchic process Once it had begun it became very difficult to halt To suggest that the Terror should end was to risk becoming its victim Ironically it was as Robespierre attempted to curtail the Terror outside Paris that he fell from power The reason Robespierre s opponents gave for executing him in July 1794 was not his extremism but his moderation Those who led the Thermidor plot against him were members of the Convention recalled from the areas in revolt who knew that they would have to account for their actions Among them was Joseph Fouch who had been prominent in the de christianization campaign and had carried out massacres in Lyon He would go on to become chief of police under Napoleon and the restored Bourbons For Fouch and others like him Robespierre became a convenient scapegoat They could shrug off their part in the Terror and blame Robespierre alone It was a convenient fiction and one that has influenced historians ever since Robespierre has become the bloody handed dictator prefiguring twentieth century dictators such as Stalin and Hitler As an historical analysis it lacks precision and is entirely unsupported by the evidence The immediate result of Thermidor was an economic catastrophe as the free market was restored Inflation increased dramatically Famine spread as peasants hoarded their grain The universal adult male franchise was abolished Only those with property had the right to vote Even so elections were repeatedly annulled by the two Directory governments Private contractors made vast profits out of supplying the army while the poor starved This was government by the rich.
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For the rich When the sans culottes attempted another insurrection in May 1795 they were defeated For the first time since the beginning of the revolution the army was used against the population of Paris Troops surrounded the Faubourg Saint Antoine and forced a surrender A Military Commission executed the leaders of the insurrection leaving the sans culottes broken as a political force By the time Babeuf tried to organise an uprising the following year it was impossible to revive the revolutionary movement of the earlier period. Revolutionary ideas epub download Many of the Girondins gradually re emerged into public life after the fall of Robespierre Israel regards this as a resurgence of the core values of the revolution But it was they who engineered Napoleon Bonaparte s coup d etat Si yes was the author of the pamphlet What is the Third Estate which was one of the seminal statements of the early days of the revolution He had voted for the execution of Louis XVI and had helped to draft the Girondins constitution But he also drafted the Constitution of the Year VIII which brought himself and Napoleon to power as consuls No doubt Si yes imagined that he would wield real political power but he underestimated his colleague who soon dispensed with all democratic processes and declared himself emperor France now had a genuine dictator with far power than Robespierre had ever possessed In the end Israel s determination to portray Robespierre as the villain of the piece compromises his own thesis that the ideas of the Enlightenment were progressive and have contributed to the development of a democratic society What emerged from Thermidor was by no means democratic It entrenched the power of the wealthy The ideas of the Enlightenment certainly were progressive and they are undoubtedly worth defending today but it cannot be done by excising Robespierre from the revolution At a time when social inequality is approaching levels not seen for a century.
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And aristocracy as well as greatly devaluing religion as a guide to human conduct. Revolutionary ideas of nicolaus copernicus This shared philosophy that had directed men toward a common goal of forming a society with a liberated peoples soon branched out from a liberalism contesting the aristocracy to then an anti Rousseausim even though Rousseau s bust became the symbol of the revolutionary cause held up during the third anniversary of the fall of the Bastille on 14th July 1792 into a militant liberalism of Brissot whose name embodied this philosophy of the faction later to become the Brissotin a populist authoritarianism of Robespierre and Marat who sought to institutionalize Rousseau. Revolutionary ideas meaning Israel deals less with the psychology and personalities of the revolutionary leaders like Simon Schama s Citizen.
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But the true motor that was driving it forward was radical enlightenment Radical enlightenment providing revolution with the philosophical underpinning is the main thesis of this book This book is a true masterpiece Detailed and academic yet so approachable and thrilling Reading how the story of revolution unfolded was very enjoyable All the concepts we take for granted today were so hard fought and learned All these big questions like what does it really mean to be equal Freedom of press Universal suffrage Abolishment of slavery were all on the table of the revolutionaries My favourite part was reading about the period of the Terror 1793 1794 So much to learn from that When people tried to protect freedom by stripping other of it Protect equality by establishing dictatorship If you are afraid then you are guilty Anyway.
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Jonathan Irvine Israel is a British writer on Dutch history the Age of Enlightenment and European Jews Israel was appointed as Andrew W Mellon Professor in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study Princeton New Jersey in January 2001 He was previously Professor of Dutch History and Institutions at the University of London. Revolutionary Ideas pdf merger In recent years Israel has focused his attention on a multi volume history of the Age of Enlightenment He contrasts two camps The radical Enlightenment founded on a rationalist materialism first articulated by Spinoza Standing in opposition was a moderate Enlightenment which he sees as profoundly weakened by its belief in God In Israel s highly controversial interpretation the r Jonathan Irvine Israel is a British writer on Dutch history the Age of Enlightenment and European Jews Israel was appointed as Andrew W Mellon Professor in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study Princeton New Jersey in January 2001 He was previously Professor of Dutch History and Institutions at the University of London. Revolutionary ideas epub free In recent years Israel has focused his attention on a multi volume history of the Age of Enlightenment He contrasts two camps The radical Enlightenment founded on a rationalist materialism first articulated by Spinoza Standing in opposition was a moderate Enlightenment which he sees as profoundly weakened by its belief in God In Israel s highly controversial interpretation the radical Enlightenment is the main source of the modern idea of freedom He contends that the moderate Enlightenment including Locke Voltaire Montesquieu and Rousseau made no real contribution to the campaign against superstition and ignorance site_link How the Radical Enlightenment inspired and shaped the French RevolutionHistorians of the French Revolution used to take for granted what was also obvious to its contemporary observers that the Revolution was caused by the radical ideas of the Enlightenment Yet in recent decades scholars have argued that the Revolution was brought about by social forces politics economics or culture almost anything but abstract notions like liberty or equality In Revolutionary Ideas one of the world s leading historians of the Enlightenment restores the Revolution s intellectual history to its rightful central role Drawing widely on primary sources Jonathan Israel shows how the Revolution was set in motion by radical eighteenth century doctrines how these ideas divided revolutionary leaders into vehemently opposed ideological blocs and how these clashes drove the turning points of the Revolution. Revolutionary ideas of karl marx Revolutionary Ideas demonstrates that the Revolution was really three different revolutions vying for supremacy a conflict between constitutional monarchists such as Lafayette who advocated moderate Enlightenment ideas democratic republicans allied to Tom Paine who fought for Radical Enlightenment ideas and authoritarian populists such as Robespierre who violently rejected key Enlightenment ideas and should ultimately be seen as Counter Enlightenment figures The book tells how the fierce rivalry between these groups shaped the course of the Revolution from the Declaration of Rights through liberal monarchism and democratic republicanism to the Terror and the Post Thermidor reaction. Book Revolutionary ideas para In this compelling account a historian of the Enlightenment era to remind people that while economic and social factors may explain what caused Revolution the reason why things turned out the way it did was because of the Enlightenment Through this exhaustive look at the ideological battles between Lafayette s moderate constitutional monarchists Brissotin s democratic republicans and Robespierre s absolutist populism Mr Israel makes the case that the French Revolution was the result of the Radical Enlightenment Mr Israel also shows that Robespierre s Reign of Terror was not the culmination of the Revolution and the Enlightenment but rather a betrayal of everything it stood for As I said before it is exhaustive and I would not recommend this book to anyone who does not already have a good working knowledge of the major events and key players and groups from this period It would also help if you knew a little French as the author frequently uses quotes in French frequently Also the author s attention to the minutiae can bog the narrative down a lot However this is a good book that connects the Revolution and its ideals with the ideals of the Enlightenment I would recommend this book to serious history buffs specializing in the French Revolution 888 You must admit that the genesis of a great man depends on the long series of complex influences which has produced the race in which he appears and the social state into which that race has slowly grown Before he can remake his society his society must make him Herbert Spencer The Study of Sociology Abolitionist meme Keep Calm it s the west motherfucker uber . Revolutionary Ideas bookkeeping If anything is humanly certain it is that the great man s society properly so called does not make him before he can remake it The mutations of societies then from generation to generation are in the main due directly or indirectly to the acts or the examples of individuals whose genius was so adapted to the receptivities of the moment or whose accidental position of authority was so critical that they became ferments initiators of movements setters of precedent or fashion centers of corruption or destroyers of other persons whose gifts had they had free play would have led society in another direction. Revolutionary ideas spread to latin america William James in his 1880 lecture Great Men Great Thoughts and the Environment Moderate Enlightenment The Radical Enlightenment originated Israel argues arguably global history Whether one agrees with Israel s identification of ideas as the fundamental cause of the French Revolution or not it is positive that he has brought the question to the attention of readers and students once . Revolutionary ideasurround For Israel the French Revolution is a revolution of ideas which paved the way for a revolution of events The revolution of ideas was he argues under way even before the Estates General convened in April 1789 The caf s publishing presses and meeting places of the Palais Royal were at the centre of this revolution of ideas and he traces the part that those who congregated there played in the early phases of the revolution Essentially the group he has in mind are the followers of Jacques Pierre Brissot or the Girondins as they are often known They shared Israel argues a coherent philosophical and political programme based on materialism atheism republicanism and a belief in the equality of humanity It was they in his view who established the revolution s core values human rights black emancipation women s rights and representative democracy They were the real leaders of the revolution and sought to achieve change by constitutional non violent means It was only later that the revolution took a violent turn He attributes the turn to violence to what he describes as Robespierre s putsch in June 1793 Robespierre did not share the values of the true revolutionaries according to Israel because he was not a materialist or an atheist and came only belatedly to republicanism He was Israel argues an obsessive puritanical disciple of Rousseau rather than a follower of the Holbach circle like the Girondins He rejected their internationalism and adopted a narrowly nationalistic view of the revolution and its objectives. Revolutionary Ideas bookkeeping Robespierre is usually regarded as a central figure in the revolution one of its most left wing leaders but Israel rejects this conception He regards Robespierre as the gravedigger of the revolution rather than its leader and a conservative rather than a radical He argues that Robespierre played little part in the early stages of the revolution and only came to power by murdering its real leaders and imposing a system of Terror that overthrew the core values of the revolution. Revolutionary Ideas pdf drive The Terror was the means by which Robespierre maintained his hold on power because he had so little support in the country at large His political ideology was in essence a form of authoritarian populism according to Israel with which he manipulated the militant but erratic sans culottes who were an anarchic inconsistent ebbing and flowing element with little cognizance of the general scenario Even among the sans culottes only some of the most illiterate were drawn to Robespierre. Revolutionary ideas in recent history Rather than being the inevitable consequence of the revolution as many have argued Dumouriez and Joubert were all generals who in their turn eyed political power Robespierre seems to have had some political foresight on this matter. Revolutionary ideasurge Later socio economic issues divided them By 1793 the war was going disastrously badly and armed counter revolution had broken out in several parts of France including major provincial cities The economy deteriorated under the strain The food supply always vulnerable even before the revolution now became extremely precarious For artisans and labourers who relied on wages Robespierre insisted is therefore that which guarantees the means of existence to all the members of society all other laws are subordinate to this one property is only instituted or guaranteed to affirm it It is not true that property can ever be held in opposition to man s subsistence Ruth Scurr Fatal Purity Robespierre and the French Revolution London Vintage Books 2007 p 245 It was speeches like this that won Robespierre support among the sans culottes and came to characterise a group known as the Mountain because they occupied the highest benches in the Convention hall The group included Robespierre Danton Desmoulins and Marat When Marat published the slogan Tax the rich to subsidize the poor the Girondins condemned him They put him on trial in front of the Revolutionary Tribunal but he was acquitted and carried from the room in triumph. Revolutionary ideas of karl marx It was in this crisis for the revolution that one of the Girondins deputies made a speech in the Convention threatening to annihilate Paris and the sans culottes The response came on June 2 1793 when thousands of sans culottes and the National Guard surrounded the Convention They demanded that the Girondins deputies be put on trial It is this insurrection that Israel regards as a putsch But that is misleading The term implies that Robespierre had some form of military power which he did not The National Guard was working with the Paris Commune a body in which Robespierre had influence but no overwhelming authority It also implies that the Girondins were a government which they were not France did not have an effective government in the summer of 1793 Power was shared between the ministers the committees of the Convention and increasingly the Commune of Paris The events of June 1793 might just as easily be described as a failed bid for power by Brissot and the Girondins Had they succeeded in defeating Robespierre and the Mountain the outcome might have been even bloodier if they had carried out the threat to wage war on Paris and the sans culottes. Revolutionary Ideas pdf24 The Mountain never had a majority in the Convention and Robespierre did not hold dictatorial authority even after June 1793 Power was gradually centralised in the Committee of Public Safety which acted as a kind of war cabinet000 people died Most of the executions took place in cities that had rebelled against Paris Almost 2000 people were executed when Lyons was retaken by revolutionary forces It is thought that 3500 died at Nantes some 1800 of them in the noyades when victims were tied together and set adrift in leaking boats Horrific though these events were they were not exceptional by the standards of the time Almost as many people approximately 20 Marat s call to Tax the rich to subsidize the poor has a definite resonance Whilst the issues today may be access to housing education and health care rather than bread the rights of private property are being placed in opposition to human life just as surely as they were in Robespierre s day 888 The problem with trying to learn about the French Revolution is that it is nearly impossible to describe it clearly without explicitly or implicitly assuming an ideological stance in relation to it Even seemingly uninflected factual descriptions struggle to avoid this narrative choices are inevitably made that imply judgments Worse simple narrative depictions of the factual course of events are hopelessly bewildering How can anyone not deeply knowledgable of this history make sense of the endless series of machinations all the positionings and counter positionings all the re orderings that were polemical as much as substantial One is rapidly numbed by the downward spiral of reprisals and counter reprisals. Revolutionary ideas that changed the world Israel s account of the most fervent stretch of the French Revolution succeeds in avoiding a dry litany of facts but he does so by generating an account of the Revolution sure to warm the heart of any neoliberal He provides a fairly detailed account of all the political developments of the period in relation to the political or philosophical positions espoused And to be sure it hangs together It hangs together TOO well It hangs together as a Manichean melodrama What greater cliche for the age of revolutions eh For Israel the good guys were Condorcet Thomas Paine and others representing the true liberalist core of the Revolution The bad guys were Robespierre Marat and company whom Israel pillories as philosophically unsophisticated demagogues and proto fascists Israel s Montagnards are a far cry from the heroes of Marxist tellings the first stirrings of a proletarian leadership Nope for Israel these voices of the streets were just mercenary thugs who killed off the true revolution the one whose values conveniently enough look much like those of the US founding fathers moderate liberalism constitutional gradualism rule of law winning assertions of gender and race equality Israel portrays the French Revolution model for the ideological complexity of all subsequent revolutions as a simple showdown between Democratic Liberals and Nazis Guess which side we re rooting for I m not saying that Robespierre and Marat were pussycats Obviously not ok they were sort of like feral rabid plague infested pussycats The point is that Israel purports to present an intellectual history Intellectual history to be deserving of the name consists of the presentation of opposing views with candor and without bias Insofar as Israel lauds his favorites and slanders their enemies his work does not deserve its subtitle. Revolutionary ideas meaning That said there s much good information here for a relative neophyte like myself I was particularly appreciative of his discussion of how what was going on in France inspired the Haitian Revolution such a fascinating under appreciated chapter in modern history 888 The French Revolution has a unique centrality in modern history and relevance to the challenges of our own time Israel 696. Revolutionary ideasys Revolutionary Ideas is a first rate academic intellectual history of the French Revolution It aims and succeeds in my opinion in arguing for an interpretation of the revolution as fundamentally motivated by radical Enlightenment philosophy Importantly it defines three very different revolutions or phases thereof This account convincingly reinvigorates the value of the Revolution as the quote highlights above. PDF Revolutionary ideas para As a work of history this is a remarkable achievement Jonathan Israel is an incredible writer He has imbedded thousands of references and quotes in an accessible and smooth prose that while staunchly academic and exceptionally well researched invites even a motivated lay reader such as I am to walk away richly rewarded. Kindle revolutionary ideas reddit Revolutionary Ideas is an impressively deep albeit narrowly focused history of the intellectual demarcations and achievements of the revolutionary period 1789 1800 This slightly dissatisfied me as I would have loved to explore of the germinating radical philosophical ideas as well as those shaping the revolution However I acknowledge this disappointment conceding that Israel states very clearly his intention in the introduction. Revolutionary ideas eu4 Still unsure whether to read this Then I offer the following in conclusion The Enlightenment project failed it has been wrongly claimed because the radical empiricism of modern science when applied to the history and sociology of morals revealed no human consensus but instead an ultimate diversity of moral perspectives This is the postmodernist cry But in fact radical Enlightenment critique provided logical convincing grounds for discarding all religious and traditional perspectives and basing the claim to universal emancipation on a systematic monism and materialism that alone matched and fitted the criteria of the critique of existing politics moral systems and condition Israel 707. Revolutionary ideas of nicolaus copernicus How true of radical philosophy How true that it largely motivated the Revolution How much value enlightenment thinking has for our own times 888
Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre By Jonathan I. Israel |
0691151725 |
9780691151724 |
English |
888 |
Hardcover |
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