Revolution

Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution

Instead of the dying Old Regime, Schama presents an ebullient country, vital and inventive, infatuated with novelty and technology--a strikingly fresh view of Louis XVI's France. A New York Times bestseller in hardcover. 200 illustrations.

Marie Antoinette: The Journey

In the past, Antonia Fraser's bestselling histories and biographies have focused on people and events in her native England, from Mary Queen of Scots to Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot. Now she crosses the Channel to limn the life of France's unhappiest queen, bringing along her gift for fluent storytelling, vivid characterization, and evocative historical background. Marie Antoinette (1755-93) emerges in Fraser's sympathetic portrait as a goodhearted girl woefully undereducated and poorly prepared for the dynastic political intrigues into which she was thrust at age 14, when her mother, Empress Maria Theresa, married her off to the future Louis XVI to further Austria's interests in France. Far from being the licentious monster later depicted by the radicals who sent her to the guillotine at the height of the French Revolution, young Marie Antoinette was quite prudish, as well as thoroughly humiliated by her husband's widely known failure to have complete intercourse with her for seven long years (the gory details were reported to any number of concerned royal parties, including her mother and brother). She compensated by spending lavishly on clothes and palaces, but Fraser points out that this hardly made her unique among 18th-century royalty, and in any case the causes of the Revolution went far beyond one woman's frivolities. The moving final chapters show Marie Antoinette gaining in dignity and courage as the Revolution stripped her of everything, subjected her to horrific brutalities (a mob paraded the head of her closest female friend on a pike below her window), and eventually took her life. Fraser makes no attempt to hide the queen's shortcomings, in particular her poor political skills, but focuses on her personal warmth and noble bearing during her final ordeal. It's another fine piece of popular historical biography to add to Fraser's already impressive bibliography. --Wendy Smith

France's iconic queen, Marie Antoinette, wrongly accused of uttering the infamous "Let them eat cake," was alternately revered and reviled during her lifetime. For centuries since, she has been the object of debate, speculation, and the fascination so often accorded illustrious figures in history. Married in mere girlhood, this essentially lighthearted child was thrust onto the royal stage and commanded by circumstance to play a significant role in European history. Antonia Fraser's lavish and engaging portrait excites compassion and regard for all aspects of the queen, immersing the reader not only in the coming-of-age of a graceful woman, but in the culture of an unparalleled time and place.

Instant European History: From the French Revolution to the Cold War

From the French Revolution to the Cold War, this spirited chronicle brings European history to life, following the trails of treachery, unearthing the dirt on key historical figures, and reconstructing dramatic revolutionary battles.  So if you've ever wondered why Napolean's boundless ambition led to Waterloo or how Hitler stalled on the rocky road to Moscow, this book is for you.

Besides uncovering all the juicy facts you forgot from History 101, Instant European History reveals the surprising side of people and events that conventional accounts ignore.

You'll learn:

Why the first king of Great Britain couldn't speak English.
Why the "war to end all wars" was followed by...another war.
How the guillotine gave French Revolutionaries a middle-class tax cut.
How a German exile invented the philosophy that made Russia see red.

The Days of the French Revolution

"Never was any such event so inevitable yet so completely unforeseen." Alexis de Tocqueville's 19th-century assessment of the French Revolution echoes the contemporary reaction to the monumental events that took place over 200 years ago. Christopher Hibbert's superb historical narrative The Days of the French Revolution captures de Tocqueville's immediacy but tempers it with the hindsight of history. Detailing events from the meeting of the Estates General at Versailles in 1789 to the coup d'état that brought Napoleon to power 10 years later, The Days of the French Revolution captures the passion and ferocity motivating the events and the individuals that most dramatically shaped the Revolution.

Originally published in 1990, The Days of the French Revolution maintains its supremacy among the plethora of French Revolution histories. An acclaimed author of over 25 historical and biographical studies, Hibbert presents complexly related events in a logical, readable format and supplies plenty of historical background and detail without sacrificing clarity or narrative flow. He writes for the general reader unfamiliar with Revolution history, introducing them to individuals as diverse as Marie Antoinette, the young lawyer Danton, the journalist Marat, and the Girondin, sans-culotte and extremist Enragé political factions, weaving their fates together, and adeptly illustrating how they influenced the Revolution and how the Revolution, in turn, changed their lives. Maps, illustrations, a chronology of principle events, a glossary, and a list of major sources supplement Hibbert's eight chronologically ordered chapters, and his prologue, which focuses on the reign of Louis XVI, sets the scene for the events of 1789. At the same time entertaining and informative, The Days of the French Revolution allows its readers to forget that they are reading a book of history. --Bertina Loeffler Sedlack

Works from Les Misirables by Victor Hugo to Citizens by Simon Schama have been inspired by the French Revolution. Now available for the first time in years, The Days of the French Revolution brings to life the events that changed the future of Western civilization. As compelling as any fiction thriller, this real-life drama moves from the storming of the Bastille to the doomed court of Louis XVI, the salon of Madame Roland, and even the boudoir of Marie Antoinette. Hibbert recounts the events that swirled around Napoleon, Mirabeau, Danton, Marat, and Robespierre with eyewitness accounts and his "usual grace and flair for divulging interesting detail" (Booklist). This trade paperback edition has twenty-eight pages of black-and-white illustrations, and will be published in time for Bastille Day.

The Oxford History of the French Revolution

This second edition of the most authoritative and comprehensive history of the French Revolution draws on a wealth of new research in order to reassess the greatest of all revolutions. It includes a generous chronology of events and an extended bibliographical essay providing an examination of the historiography of the Revolution. Beginning with the accession of Louis XVI in 1774, leading historian William Doyle traces the history of France through revolution, terror, and counter-terror, to the triumph of Napoleon in 1802, along the way analyzing the impact of these events in France upon the rest of Europe. He explores how a movement which began with optimism and general enthusiasm soon became a tragedy, not only for the ruling orders, but for millions of ordinary people all over Europe who paid the price for the destruction of the old political order and the struggle to establish a new one.
Highly readable and meticulously researched, The Oxford History of the French Revolution will provide new insight into one of the most important events in European history.

The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

Beginning with a discussion of familiar images of the French Revolution, garnered from Dickens, Baroness Orczy, and Tolstoy, as well as the legends of let them eat cake, and tricolours, Doyle leads the reader to the realization that we are still living with developments and consequences of the French Revolution such as decimalization, and the whole ideology of human rights. Continuing with a brief survey of the old regime and how it collapsed, Doyle continues to ellucidate how the revolution happened: why did the revolutionaries quarrel with the king, the church and the rest of Europe, why this produced Terror, and finally how it accomplished rule by a general. The revolution destroyed the age-old cultural, institutional and social structures in France and beyond. This book looks at how the ancien regime became ancien as well as examining cases in which achievement failed to match ambition. Doyle explores the legacy of the revolution in the form of rationality in public affairs and responsible government, and finishes his examination of the revolution with a discussion of why it has been so controversial.

The Reign Of Napoleon Bonaparte

Between the years 1805 and 1815, the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte conquered most of continental Europe, establishing their leader, if but briefly, as "a new Charlemagne." In the second part of his two volumes on the life of the emperor, military historian Robert Asprey examines the armies' triumphs and eventual defeat, following in their footsteps from Spain to Russia, and on to Waterloo.

Bonaparte, Asprey writes, aspired to forge and lead a united, peaceful Europe, a quest that required much blood to be shed. A former U.S. marine officer, Asprey is a reliable commentator on matters of battlefield strategy and tactics, and his book's greatest strength is his power to invoke the feel of bloody engagements, which include the Battle of Borodino, where more than 40,000 Russians fell in a single day (cut down, he notes, by the more than 2 million rounds that French muskets fired); Wagram, where French forces managed to eke out victory over their Austrian foes despite a series of costly blunders; Corunna, where the French forces, having marched 15 and more miles a day, proved "that there have probably been no tougher soldiers in the world"; and the decisive action at Waterloo, where French, Belgian, German, and English armies clashed amid thunderstorms and confusion to an end that was anything but inevitable.

Other books do a better job of treating Napoleon as a political being, but Asprey's is one of the better recent books on Napoleon as general, and students of military history will learn much from his account. --Gregory McNamee

The Penguin Atlas of World History: Volume 1: From Prehistory to the Eve of the French Revolution (Penguin Reference Books)

This wide-ranging, chronological summary of the main cultural, scientific, religious, and political events from the beginning of world history to the eve of the French Revolution is accompanied by detailed maps that clarify complex historical situations and make this an essential reference book for students and for the home.

A History of Philosophy: Volume IX: Modern Philosophy from the French Revolution to Sartre, Camus, and Levi-Strauss

Conceived originally as a serious presentation of the development of philosophy for Catholic seminary students, Frederick Copleston's nine-volume A History Of Philosophy has journeyed far beyond the modest purpose of its author to universal acclaim as the best history of philosophy in English.

Pacification in Algeria, 1956-1958

When Algerian nationalists launched a rebellion against French rule in November 1954, France was forced to cope with a varied and adaptable Algerian strategy. In this volume, originally published in 1963, David Galula reconstructs the story of his highly successful command at the height of the rebellion. This groundbreaking work, with a new foreword by Bruce Hoffman, remains relevant to present-day counterinsurgency operations.