Please recommend books about the French Revolution

[lizbee]

I started playing Assassin's Creed: Unity and realised that I know almost nothing about the French Revolution. We did study it in grade 10, but I missed a lot of time due to a never-identified virus -- I was out for most of the American Revolution and all of the French, and mostly passed the class because I knew more about the Chinese Communist Revolution than my teacher. (It's not her fault, she was an art teacher who was roped in to teach history for ... reasons which I'm sure made sense at the time.) 

Anyway, I've decided to fill the gap in my knowledge. I started out by trying to listen to The Rest Is History, a podcast my mum recommended, but the hosts are two English men, and they spend a weird amount of time comparing Marie Antoinette to Meghan Markle, but in a derogatory "maybe we should decapitate the Duchess of Sussex" way that I did not care for. 

Then I read The French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert, which I think is from 1980. It was a solemn, dispassionate accounting of events and personalities, but didn't get into the question of, for example, why the Parisian mob went from zero to heads on pikes in the storming of the Bastille. 

I've requested an inter-library loan for Citizens by Simon Schama, which I've seen recommended a lot, but I would also be eager to read a history that's not ... British? Because the British, for understandable reasons (I guess) weren't really down with the beheading of the monarch and the end of the monarchy (even though they did it first), and I feel like a pro-aristocratic bias has pervaded a lot of what I've encountered. And obviously the Terror was bad, but, like, maybe Robespierre was an asexual smol bean who was a convenient scapegoat! I'm open to the possibility! 

I am open to suggestions, is what I'm saying. 

Comments

[gelliaclodiana]

So this is not a nonfiction book and also not by a non-Brit, but if you are interested in this kind of speculation (i.e. like, maybe Robespierre was an asexual smol bean who was a convenient scapegoat! I'm open to the possibility!) I would recommend Hilary Mantel's novel, A Place of Greater Safety, which is basically where the French Revolution happens because everyone wants to get into Camille Desmoulin's pants, and also addresses the issue of how you go from zero to heads-on-pikes.

[lizbee]

A friend of mine was telling me how she was so obsessed with this book as a teen that she stole it from her school library -- so I do very much have to read it.

[troisoiseaux]

+1 to this rec. Is it a good book? I cannot say, I was simply too fifteen when I originally read it to have an objective opinion either then or any of the times I've re-read it.

[lizbee]

Me and Possession by A. S. Byatt.

[troisoiseaux]

My favorite nonfiction book about the French Revolution is The Fall of Robespierre: 24 Hours in Revolutionary Paris by Colin Jones, which is literally a hour-by-hour look at one very dramatic day in the history of the French Revolution (overthrow of Robespierre) and therefore maybe not the best introduction to the period. I read Ian Davidson's The French Revolution and thought it was pretty good/fine as an overview; I've heard good things about Jeremy Popkin's A New World Begins but haven't read it myself.

[lizbee]

Thank you! The Fall of Robespierre definitely doesn't sound introductory, but I'm putting it on my list for when I have more knowledge.

[neotoma]

I've asked a friend who is a French history buff for recommendations, so hopefully more recommendations will be coming soon.

[lizbee]

Thanks!

[fred_mouse]

One of the online MOOCs (possibly Coursera) had a French Revolution unit that I started engaging with that I was enjoying until I ran out of oomph. Possibly from one of the USA big universities?

[sabotabby]

If you do podcasts, Revolutions has a 10000000000 episode-long season about it.

[lizbee]

Oh, I knew there was a big podcast I had forgotten!

[starlady]

Caroline Weber's Queen of Fashion is not directly about the Revolution, but the subtitle is "What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution" and it does have a lot of information about how France got to the Revolution as part of explaining why everyone hated Marie Antoinette so much. And it's a really interesting way to look at history generally, through clothing and the labor of caring for clothing.

The Duchess of Sussex hate to me seems to just be straight-up racism, but I'm just an American.

I distrust Schama these days, but Citizens was written long enough ago that it probably still holds up.

[lizbee]

Thank you, that sounds so interesting!

The Duchess of Sussex hate to me seems to just be straight-up racism, but I'm just an American.

One hundred percent, and honestly it was interesting to listen to these men talk about how the French court would release defamatory pamphlets to the public as propaganda, and then immediately pivot to repeating Daily Mail articles about Meghan, which they took at face value. It made me deeply mistrust their ability to critically read sources.

I distrust Schama these days, but Citizens was written long enough ago that it probably still holds up.

Yeahhhhhh, there's a reason I went to the effort of an inter-library loan instead of just buying the ebook!