The French Revolution

The French Revolution had style, colour and just about everything you could want in a revolution: ravenous royals, leering aristocrats, impoverished peasants armed with sickles, angry townsfolk, sex, lies, violence, weirdos, corruption, conspiracies and head-chopping machines. The tumult of the revolution unfolded in a whirl of change and chaos, things often happening so spontaneously that the most brilliant mind on Earth couldn't have predicted the outcome. The events of 1789 and beyond were in many ways the release of a century or more of pressure on the French people; the social and political forces unleased were too new to be predictable and too strong to be controllable. It is therefore not surprising that the French Revolution and the new regime it produced devolved into terror and violence. 

The French Revolution is complicated, probably the most difficult of the four revolutions offered in this course. Though it spanned only 14 years, you must familiarise yourself with dozens of events, people and groups within that short timeframe. There are new concepts to learn and some of them, like revolutionary ideas, are abstract and complex. There are frequent changes in government, particularly in the new regime; each features different but similar-sounding bodies (e.g. the National Constituent Assembly, the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention). You must also learn terminology from another language: cahier de doleance, la patrie en danger, sans culottes and enrages, to name a few. vcehistory.info's range of topic essays, primary sources and support material will help you develop an understanding of this complex and dramatic revolution.

Steve
vcehistory.info