Historiography of the French Revolution
This information is taken from Steve Thompson’s website:
Thompson, S. vcehistory info (Internet) at http://vcehistory.info/france/
The historiography of the French Revolution has been dynamic and
intense. As it is usually considered to be the first major revolution of the
modern era (the American Revolution notwithstanding) historians over
the course of two centuries have devoted considerable amounts of time
and energy to interpreting the revolution's broader meaning, as well as
its ideas, driving forces and participants.
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By and large, was the French Revolution a positive or a negative
event? Why have certain impressions prevailed about it?
Was the revolution caused by a corrupt, deteriorating society? Or
excessive change, modernisation and progress?
Was the French Revolution of 1789 a popular uprising of the
people? Or a power shift to the minority bourgeoisie?
What were the motives and the role of the sans culottes in
creating, influencing and consolidating revolutionary change?
Was the Terror a legitimate protection of the revolution? Or just a
traitorous diversion into self-serving dictatorship?
How have perspectives and interpretations of the French
Revolution changed over time?
Edmund Burke wrote more as a contemporary critic of the revolution
rather than a historian, however his comments are still interesting and
valid as a perspective. Burke himself had been a critic of British policy
that sparked the American Revolution, so he was hardly a stoic and
barking conservative. Still, as a clever political philosopher Burke
believed that change must be managed cautiously and limited when
necessary, or it might devolve into anarchy: this was basically his view
of the revolution in France, which Burke describes as dangerously
unharnessed, excessive and motivated more by self-interest and
positioning than ideological justifications. Burke wrote this text before
the implementation of the Terror, so his predictions about chaotic
violence ended up proving quite prophetic.
Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish-born essayist writing in the first half of
the 1800s. Writing in a vivid, romantic but often stylised way, Carlyle's
'magnum opus' was a two-volume set called The French Revolution: A
History. In it he understates, ignores, even criticises the many
ideological aspects of the revolution, approaching it instead as a chaotic
mix of individual hopes, fears and unforeseen situations. His work is
therefore more personal and emotional, more interested in the people
than the 'whole' revolution and its broader political and philosophical
context. Modern historiography tends to paint Carlyle as something of a
liberal progressive or even a Utopian commentator, and while this may
be true of his writings on the French Revolution, he became more
reactionary over time, and as late as 1849 was writing essays defending
slavery.
Alfred Cobban is a prolific historian of modern France, writing texts such
as The Social Interpretation of the French Revolution and A History of
Modern France. As can be inferred from the first title is focus is mainly
on the social aspects of the revolution and French society, particularly
the various popular movements, the role of the church, education and
class struggle.
Christopher Hibbert, a prolific modern historian of many periods and
context, wrote The Days of the French Revolution (1980) in a colourful,
swirling novelised format. Hibbert's ideological perspective isn't always
clear: though he at times seems fixated with the blood and gore of the
Paris mobs, the sans culottes and the Terror, it seems to be for vivid
effect rather than to suggest the revolution devolved into abject
violence. Still, there is a palpable sense in Hibbert's writing that he sees
the revolution as an out-of-control force, one expediency after another,
rather than a logical or controlled event. He is more sympathetic to
characters like Marie-Antoinette than leftist historians, yet more harsh
on the self-obsessed and quite inflexible Robespierre.
Eric Hobsbawm is one of the 20th century's most famous historians,
from a Jewish family who fled to London in the years before World War
II. Distinctly Marxist in outlook, his broad history The Age of Revolution:
1789-1848 covers the French Revolution in considerable depth and
scope. Hobsbawm sees the revolution in France, and
subsequent revolutions on the European continent, as 'dual revolutions':
whereas England only ever underwent the Industrial Revolution,
continental nations also had to endure political upheavals and the
increased centralisation of power. Probably for that reason he spends
less time and gives much less emphasis to events in Britain and
America (he seems to disregard their own revolution altogether). He
also places particular importance on the formation and rise of the
capitalist bourgeoisie, both as a critical factor in the total restructuring of
the modern socio-economy, and the source of a new liberal ideology.
George Rude´ was professor of History at Adelaide University, as well
as colleges in Montreal and the United Kingdom. Another 20th century
Marxist historian, like Soboul he focuses on the role of the common
people in responding to and creating change: his excellent text The
Crowd in History analyses these popular movements not only in France
but also in England during the same period. Rude´ ignores the common
temptation to resort to abstract generalisations about these social
throngs (eg. 'the crowd' or 'the mob') but instead attempts to
deconstruct them, using sources like police reports to consider who they
were, why they formed, how they acted and what they responded to.
Simplistic preconceptions about crowds simply 'forming' in response to
a single event are penetrated; the crowd's leaders are distinguished and
separated from the crowds themselves.
Simon Schama, an English historian best-known for his TV series A
History of Britain, wrote Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution
(1989). Approaching the revolution from a fairly conservative Western
viewpoint, Schama saw the ancien regime not as stagnant and devoid
of positive reforms, but full of modernisation, invention, social mobility
and dynamic change. Schama's contention is that the revolution was
started by an isolated financial problem rather than a popular
movement; the revolution was consequently unjustified and based on
something of a false premise. Nor did it achieve much in terms of the
people themselves, with standards of living better under Louis XVI than
most of the subsequent regimes. Schama deconstructs the popular
myth of Louis as a pre-revolution monarch: he was certainly politically
naïve but hardly a fool, and quite deliberate and progressive in his
attempts to modernise the nation; the focus instead is on the aristocratic
intellectuals as the driving force behind the revolution, rather than
populists like Danton. In sum, Schama's right-wing revisionism of the
revolution is something of an antidote to the class-based Marxist and
social historians that prevailed during the 1960s and beyond.
Alfred Soboul has written several texts about the French Revolution and
fits very firmly in the Marxist school mentioned above. Placing the
revolution in the broader historical context of the period and applying
left-wing socio-economic perspectives, Soboul's examination focuses
particularly on the sans culottes: he sees them as a broad-based
popular movement, intent on improving the lives of the middle- and
lower-classes not only in Paris, but elsewhere in France (not all
historians have this altruistic view of the sans culottes). Soboul is
sometimes criticised for his tendency to generalise about those involved
in the movement, his idealism about their motives, and the lack of
credible sources he has used. Still, no other historian or writer has been
as successful at bringing the Paris mob, sans culottes and enrages to
life.
Mark Steel is part-historian, part-comedian, and approaches the
revolution from a left-wing view in his very funny book Vive La
Revolution. Steel's views are often irreverent but are a refreshing
contrast to stuffier conventions and preconceptions: for example he
dwells considerably on the personal failures and short-comings of key
figures like Mirabeau, Danton and Marat, while giving equal time to
some of the archaic, pointless and utterly ridiculous social and political
practices of the ancien regime. Steel is much less concerned with
ideology and philosophy, believing the political maneuvering, rabblerousing and propaganda of the day to be no different to modern politics
… in that sense, he likes the revolution as a social movement but tends
to distrust its participants on all sides.
Alexis de Tocqueville was a 19th century French historian, a strong
supporter of liberty and democracy, but also famous for stating that it is
more easy for the world to accept a 'simple lie' than a 'complex truth'.
Writing in The Ancien Regime and the French Revolution (1856)
Tocqueville took a similar line to Schama, suggesting that France was a
bustling and developing socio-economy before the revolution, and that
the monarchy had actually allowed too much freedom rather than
engaging in oppression or tyrannical restrictions. Like other liberal
historians, Tocqueville is also critical of the aristocracy, who he believed
to be indolent and purposeless in the decades before 1789. He sees the
events of that year not as a response to immediate factors, but a
climactic moment after a long series of social processes, stating that
'never before was such an inevitable event so unforeseen'.