Description
Book SynopsisAnalyzes the early years of the French Revolution to reveal the true difficulty of founding a liberal democracy in the midst of continual warfare, repeated coups d'etat, and endemic civil strife. This book highlights the role played by violence and fear in generating illiberal politics.
Trade ReviewFilled with critical insights, Brown's revisionist study utilizes an impressive array of archival sources, some only recently cataloged, to support his thesis that the French Revolution survived until 1802 and the Consulate regime.... This volume should be a priority for all historians and serious students interested in modern French history. Summing Up: Essential. - Choice ""What Brown has done is to put all historians of the French Revolution in his debt by the thoroughness with which he explores an important aspect of the complex and interrelated problems posed by any attempt to create a new social and moral order based on principles that could prove to be self-contradictory and were neither understood nor welcomed by a substantial proportion of the population."" - English Historical Review ""This is one of the most important pieces of scholarship on the French Revolution since the 1989 bicentennial."" - David Bell, Johns Hopkins University
