A Companion to the French Revolution

The French Revolution is one of the great turning–points in modern history. Never before had the people of a large and populous country sought to remake their society on the basis of the principles of popular sovereignty and civic equality. The drama, success, and tragedy of their project, and of the attempts to arrest or reverse it, have attracted scholarly debate for more than two centuries. So why was there a Revolution in 1789? Why did it prove so difficult to stabilize the new regime? What factors caused the Revolution to take its particular course? And what were the consequences, domestic and abroad, of a decade of revolutionary change? Featuring contributions from an international cast of acclaimed historians, A Companion to the French Revolution addresses these and other critical questions as it points the way to future scholarship.

Peter McPhee is Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne. His publications include Living the French Revolution 1789–1799 (2006) and Robespierre: a Revolutionary Life (2012). A Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the Academy of Social Sciences, McPhee was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2012 for service to education and the discipline of history.

“The essays range widely across the whole revolutionary era, offering excellent surveys of recent research and suggesting how contemporary historians are redefining the Revolution’s historical significance.”  (H–France) “The Revolution will never be exhausted as a subject of historical interest; this volume is an excellent survey of the current state of research.” (Reference Reviews)