Description
Book SynopsisThis collection of essays by prominent American and French scholars explores the political, cultural, and social implications of the most fundamentally formative modern event, the French Revolution. The contributors contend that the vocabulary and spirit of the French Revolution has exercised greater influence on the modern world than the more moderate and by all appearances more successful American Revolution. The Legacy of the French Revolution delineates the distinctive characters of the American and French revolutions and analyzes the different variants of democratic political traditions that have evolved from this seminal event. This book will be of particular interest to political theorists, political historians, and students of democratic theory.
Trade Review. . . the overall movement of the essays from general to specific offers something of interest to a broad range of professsional readers, including theorists, historians, comparativists and jurists. * Comparative Politics *
The essays . . . compare various aspects of the French Revolution to its American predecessor, an element of the book that will make it of particular interest to readers in the United States. The book's coherence is remarkable . . . * American Political Science Review *
Table of ContentsChapter 1 Introduction Part 2 Part I: THE IDEA OF REVOLUTION AND THE PROBLEM OF MODERN LIBERTY Chapter 3 The Unfinished Revolution Chapter 4 The French Revolution and French and English Liberalism Part 5 Part II: TWO PHILOSOPHIES, TWO REVOLUTIONS Chapter 6 The Two Revolutions Chapter 7 The American Founding and the French Revolution Chapter 8 Human Rights and Constitutional Government: A Franco-American Dialogue at the Time of Revolution Chapter 9 The Great Misunderstanding Part 10 Part III: REVOLUTION, CONSTITUTION, LAW Chapter 11 The Rule of Law in Eighteenth-Century Revolutions Chapter 12 The "Rights of Man and Citizen" in the French Constitutional Tradition Chapter 13 Revolutionary Visions in Legal Imagery: Constitutional Contrasts between France and America Chapter 14 Conclusion: Two Revolutions and the Problem of Modern Prudence Chapter 15 Index
