Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution

I am a history teacher and constantly reading books about world events. This book is unique because it gives the reader intimate details about the people involved. It does not read like your typical history book. It is not a dry list of names, dates, and events. For that, all you need is to Google “timeline of the French Revolution.” This book is special because the author did a tremendous amount of primary source research. One example is his inclusion of a sarcastic joke that Talleyrand told to his friends. The book reads like a novel. Some people are into that, some are not. If you take it slow and read for enjoyment and not for just pure information eventually you’ll see what a gem this book is. Just reading a few pages a day is something I look forward to as a little treat. I’m halfway through and don’t want it to end. I wish more history books were written like this.

Very good value. The book was in excellent condition. Had it ever been read? Only the dust cover was missing.

A huge quantity of research must have been done for this book. This book and Henry Kissinger's books offer excellent opportunity for the reader to improve vocabulary. Schama's writing lacks beauty, as found in, for example, the Iliad and parts of the Bible. But his use of mild cynicism makes for interesting reading. I had to read some sentences twice or more, given that often long qualifiers are inserted mid sentence, and given that his run-on style includes liberal use of complexity. An easier book to read, because it uses a common writing style, is Christopher Hibbert's The Days of The French Revolution. Hibbert's book also provides more detail and a more comprehensible explanation of many facts, including a good description of the political storm surrounding the condemnation to the guillotine of the Revolutions leaders such as the Girondins, Desmoulins, Danton, St Just, and Rosbespierre. Hibbert's book, unlike Schama's, provides the reasons why Fouquier-Tinville was depicted (accurately) as a horrendous villan in Baroness Orczy's wonderful book and play, The Scharlet Pimpernel. A few things apparent are: (1) The Revolution was driven by fear and terror, and (2) humankind, or at lease French humankind, was ready and even eager to send neighbors and associates to the guillotine. Unlike other historians, Schama does not try to gloss over the brutallity, nor does he emphasize it. Schama offers possible explanations for why The Terror happened, but I think he fails. It was almost as if a collective insanity overtook the country, an insanity that craved relief from boredom by feeding on blood and fear. Of course the spoken targets were the rich, the nobility, and the clergy. But in the end it could not be confined to these groups, but became anybody who remotely seemed like a political opponent. As early as March, 1793 Pierre Vergniaud, who himself eventually went to the guillotine, offered to the tribune this terrible prophecy: "So, citizens, it must be feared that the Revolution, like Saturn, successively devouring its children, will engender, finally, only despostism with the calamities that accompany it". Despotism indeed was the fruit of the Revolution. But it was not Saturn that did the devouring, but the children of Saturn. In many ways the French Revolution and, for that matter, the monarchy of King Louis XVI, preceeded the social engineering advocated by Lenin and Marx. A social safety net, wage and price controls, and taxation of products, land and incomes, were halmarks of the Revolution. Many of these reforms were later abandoned out of necessity because they caused shortages and economic stagnation. A primary component of the Revolution, which sought "liberty, justice, and fraternity", was de-Christianization of France. A lesson Schama's and Hibbert's books provide is that when men and women seek social reform by depending on "reason" absent faith in God, then the result of that reform will more often be despotism. A question that comes to mind: The story of the French Revolution is one of the most terrible episodes in modern history, partly because it was promulgated primarily by the common people rather than an elite leadership such as happened in Germany, Russia, and China. So why has Hollywood not made movies about the Revolution? Even though the guillotine was abandoned in 1795, the fear lasted for several decades, and likely prevented resistence to the massive military conscription program instituted by Napoleon Bonapart 20 years later.

This is one of the best written works of historical fiction that I've run across. Simon Schama captures the spirit of the French Revolution so well that I found myself dreaming that I was part of it all, complete with vivid colors and other treats for the senses! He weaves together very well the strands that connect events in North America with those in France (e.g.: how French financing for the American Revolution contributed to destruction of their own financial system). My college studies certainly didn't analyze so well the causes of the Revolution, what it actually meant for the "citizens" in the title, nor the costs in prematurely ended and shattered lives. The book should be required reading for anyone who hopes to make a life in politics, because it presents very well the absolute need for balance in governance of a country. Perhaps if the genuine idealists among the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks had consulted a work like this, they would have avoided the destructive infighting and overall terror that kept their newly formed Soviet state from evolving into a true people's democracy. Schama doesn't draw direct parallels between events in France and those in Russia 100 years later, but they are inescapable. Comparisons between France under Louis XVI and the USA under Obama are also frighteningly apt.

If you're writing a book involving the French Revolution (as I did about the Bastille key Lafayette gave to George Washington) or just intensely interested in the political history of liberty, you'll not want to miss reading this book. Immense in scope at almost a thousand pages, it introduces many interesting aspects of the French Revolution I hadn't found elsewhere. Given the wide coverage of the book, I'll have to forgive the author the few minor instances where his facts are not 100% right or he turns to areas not exactly "page-turning." Still, this encyclopedic book serves as a starting point for those wishing to pursue scholarship of the numerous details of this momentous event in human history. Time and again, it is referenced in subsequent works on the subject, and it may not be too far off to call it the "Bible of the French Revolution." Very well done! Check out one of William J. Bahr’s books: George Washington's Liberty Key: Mount Vernon's Bastille Key – the Mystery and Magic of Its Body, Mind, and Soul , a best seller at Mount Vernon.

Scams is a great writer and a meticulous historian. However., in his obsession with detail, the overall narrative is lost. The book is far too long to be read in a short sitting, and every time I came back to it, I found I had lost the thread of the last few pages and the overall context of the point I had reached. It is a book for those who are already very familiar with the French Revolution, who will enjoy the vignettes and learn a lot about the events that they had never known before.

Sicher gutes Buch, nun muss ich es aber zurückschicken, da Amazon wieder mal ein beschädigtes Exemplar versandt hat, bei einem Preis von 26€ nicht akzeptabel. Künftig bestelle ich auch englische Bücher in der Buchhandlung, kosten zwar dort etwas mehr, dafür spart man sich den Ärger mit ca. jeder zweiten Buchbestellung.

Excellent book.

There are many books on the French Revolution, finding a good one is much more difficult. I looked at dozens of books before I came to this one. I find researching the French Revolution difficult due to its modern perception. Many books on the subject I find to be bias and not really well researched. The bias comes from the publics view of this subject in history. The French Revolution gave rise to Democracy, human rights and so on. Since these are things were take for granted and at face value, we are taught since high school that the Revolution was a source for good in the world and that anything in history that does not lead to a tolerant, democratic society is wrong. This is simplistic and not academic thinking. Explaining the revolution as the big bad upper class oppressing the lower ones, superstition vs reason ad so fourth is a very Marxist and simplistic view. This is why I chose this book and was very pleased. The author made no suggestions of the Revolution as being any better, force of good or progressive in history, he presents it as ‘what essentially happened’. Moreover I was very surprised, as he looked at The Ancient Regime, not as a backward, intolerant and evil in nature but more modern than I could understand. For example, most of the nobility wanted noble titles to be earned through merit not by inheritance, they wanted in creased taxation as they were the richest. Most wanted a separate legal system and to abolish the guilds. Many even wanted a constitution! What is presented is that the Ancient Regime was in fact far from revolution and more on the cusp of change. The author actually presents the revolution not as the little guy fighting the big bad 1%, but as a hijacking by radicals. That once things were set in motion, the most radical elements of society took over the revolution. This was a great book that is extremely well researched and argued. The author makes you rethink what the Revolution was about and why it happened, not what you should believe.