French Revolution reading

[bailey_187]

I am reading Mark Steel's history of the french revolution but would like some more works from Marxists, preferably more debates about certain issues. What would be good?

[RED DAVE]

The work of Georges Lefevre are excellent. Start with his The Coming of the French Revolution (http://books.google.com/books?id=P4EYuia7buUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+coming+of+the+french+revolution&source=bl&ots=cLBvT5ORsl&sig=5tylUvJZSRjK6P_TYrelRgYJeAQ&hl=en&ei=dYrTS4LLBYH78AbnlLzZDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CA4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false). The link is to google books. I don't know if that has the whole book or just large chunks of it.

RED DAVE

[Jimmie Higgins]

Why are you reading about the French Revolution? Everybody knows the revolutionaries were only driven to that in order to compensate for their monstrous and beastly physical appearencees.:lol:

Maybe the fucking French have the right fucking idea, maybe we should go on strike like they do. Mind you, I hate the fucking french.:lol:

Ha, that book is hilarious - I read the whole thing on a flight back to California a couple of years ago.

[La Comédie Noire]

Albert Soboul is another good Marxist historian on the French Revolution, but I'd suggest you start off with a more basic account to become oriented with the historiography, because he goes into great detail about the social, political, and economic causes of the revolution. He's a dry read, but very informative.

[S.Artesian]

Albert Soboul is another good Marxist historian on the French Revolution, but I'd suggest you start off with a more basic account to become oriented with the historiography, because he goes into great detail about the social, political, and economic causes of the revolution. He's a dry read, but very informative.


Soboul's work on the sans-culottes in the revolution is great. For the Jacobin fans out there, Mathiez's work is excellent [Mathiez is a big Robespierre booster-- and there are worse things to say the least].

Interesting book-- French Revolutionaries and English Republicans by Rachel Hammersley on the Cordeliers Club [my favorite club, but not my favorite force-- that being the commune].

And there's always The Defense of Gracchus Babeuf

[Devrim]

Although not Marxist, the anarchist Kropotkin's 'The Great French Revolution, 1789-1793' is worth a look, and available on line here:

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/frenchrev/frontpiece.html

Devrim

[zubovskyblvd]

Eric Hobsbawm is a Marxist historian who wrote The Age of Revolution 1789-1848 which covers the French Revolution and also the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Not read much of it yet, but it looks fascinating and is highly regarded by many

[Devrim]

Eric Hobsbawm is a Marxist historian who wrote The Age of Revolution 1789-1848 which covers the French Revolution and also the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Not read much of it yet, but it looks fascinating and is highly regarded by many

It is very good and worth reading in my opinion. He tries to give more of an overview of the period than details about specific events. In fact, iwould recomend all four books in the series though by the time of the last one it is clear that Hobsbawn is a better historian than he is a Marxist.

Devrim

[BAM]

George Rudé - who was a sometime collaborator of Hobsbawm - wrote a short and readable account of the French Revolution, from its origins to the rise of Napoleon and beyond, called, imaginatively enough, The French Revolution: Its Causes, Its History and Its Legacy. Not the most thrilling historical account, but covers all the main points well enough.

[bailey_187]

Mathiez's work is excellent [Mathiez is a big Robespierre booster-- and there are worse things to say the least].


I searched for him on Amazon but all but one of his books (the one being from 1962) are in French only. Is this just Amazon or is that all he got in English?

[S.Artesian]

I searched for him on Amazon but all but one of his books (the one being from 1962) are in French only. Is this just Amazon or is that all he got in English?

Here's where I have to indicate how much older I am than most people here-- I read this Mathiez's book on the French Revolution [and the follow-up After Robespierre] some 40 years ago [ I was 3 at the time]. Try abebooks at http://www.abebooks.com (http://www.abebooks.com/)

They might have a English translation available

Just checked... they have it:http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=Albert+Mathiez&sts=t&x=0&y=0

[bailey_187]

lol what, you read it when you was 3?

[S.Artesian]

Give or take 20 years....