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Citizens

A Chronicle of the French Revolution

Audiobook
1 of 2 copies available
1 of 2 copies available

From one of the truly preeminent historians of our time, this is a landmark book chronicling the French Revolution. Simon Schama deftly refutes the contemporary notion that the French Revolution represented an uprising of the oppressed poor against a decadent aristocracy and corrupt court. He argues instead that the revolution was born of a rift among the elite over the speed of progress toward modernity and science, social and economic change. Schama's approach, weaving in and out of private and public lives in the fashion of a novel, brings us closer than we have ever been to the harrowing and seductive French Revolution.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      December 2, 1991
      The Old Regime, far from being moribund on the eve of the French Revolution, bristled with signs of dynamism and energy, writes Schama in this sprawling, provocative, sometimes infuriating chronicle that stands much conventional wisdom on its head. His contention is that the Revolution did not produce a ``patriotic culture of citizenship'' but was preceded by one. The privileged classes, he argues, were open to new blood, and a ``capitalist nobility'' deeply involved in industrial enterprise supported technological innovation. If Schama ( The Embarrassment of Riches ) is correct, the fiscal havoc of Louis XVI's regime did not have revolution as its inevitable outcome, but a cult of violence, endorsed by romanticism, became the engine of historical change in a country gripped by paranoia. Schama's startling revisionist synthesis is enriched by over 200 illustrations bringing popular arts and revolutionary fervor to life. 40,000 first printing; BOMC main selection.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 19, 1990
      In what PW called a ``sprawling, provocative, sometimes infuriating chronicle that stands much conventional wisdom on its head,'' Schama argues that the Revolution did not produce a ``patriotic culture of citizenship'' but was preceded by one.

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