Talk:Historiography of the French Revolution

POV
Normally, I'm the scourge of POV; in this case, I can't bring myself to remove what are clearly well-informed and useful remarks on these historians. However, it would be a lot better if these assessments of the historians were, themselves, attributed appropriately. I did this myself in one case (citing the 1911 EB's assessment of Michelet). -- Jmabel | Talk 00:45, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC) what of all the unsubstantiated praise of the (seemingly) nutty 1919 study by Webster? either that paragraph should be cut, or that assessment of her book should be supported.[anon]108.67.84.73 (talk) 21:53, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Revisionism
At the moment the terms "revisionsist", "anti-revisionsist", and "neo-revisionsist" are thrown around lightly, without explanation. Probably they should either be explained here, or linked appropriately to an article that explains their meaning in a manner relevant to this context. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:45, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Agreed - particularly because 'revisionism' isn't a single belief, it's simply historical reinterpretation. Kfodderst (talk) 06:43, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Marcel Gauchet
There's no English article for him, but I've put him on the list for his Révolution des droits de l'homme.--WadeMcR 21:23, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

better?
I dunno. Hope so. I think I may have left out a handful of the more recent folk, but it's too late and i've made too many spelling errors to go back in and fish them out. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.173.30.157 (talk • contribs) 11 September 2006.
 * Nice job. Please consider creating an account! - Jmabel | Talk 05:35, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Looking more closely, I see that you dropped several things without comment. Usually, when doing that, it is best to be explicit on the talk page, in case someone thinks that something merits inclusion.

It appears that the following were totally cut:


 * Owen Connelly - The French Revolution (with Fred E. Hembree) 1993.
 * Marcel Gauchet - pupil of Furet, author of La révolution des droits de l'homme
 * Daniel Guerin stresses the antagonism between the Jacobins like Robespierre and the masses they instrumentalised.
 * Olwen Hufton
 * Dale K. Van Kley - The Religious Origins of the French Revolution from Calvin to the Civil Constitution

I'm not making a specific case for restoring these (of these, I'm familiar only with Guerin—should be Guérin, by the way; I'd be interested in knowing why he was dropped). There does seem to be a bit less "history from below" in the piece now than perhaps there should be (not to say that it was better before). Also (again, nothing new) Tocqueville probably deserves a bit more: his work on the French Revolution was probably his most important. (It's shorted in his bio, too. Americo-centrism, I suspect, in that case if not in this.) - Jmabel | Talk 03:02, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, they were just dropped because I lost track of things and I'm not familiar with those authors - no substantial reason. I don't know where to fit them in, so how about we just add them back to the bottom for now? Agree about Tocqueville, too - it's been a long while since I read his book though. I've just been worried for a while now that this (as you say, POVish but still worthwhile) list was going to be deleted once a narky editor came across it. Hopefully we can work it into something a lot less biased. 203.173.30.157 06:38, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh and I know it's minor but I would really like to find a reference for that Zhou Enlai quote I put in the intro. Everything I've found is anecdotal. Did he really say it? 203.173.30.157 06:42, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

PS I now have an account. Foraminifera 06:46, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * If Zhou didn't say it, he should have. It is variously attributed as having been said in 1949 and at the time of Kissinger's visit, not a great sign. I suspect we will never know with certainty. I think it would be reasonable to say that it is a possibly apocryphal quotation generally attributed to Zhou. - Jmabel | Talk 07:18, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Okay and all, but there really are a lot of important authors and works absent, consider the following section of my reading list for the Doctoral Candidacy Exam:

The (Problem of the) Origins of the French Revolution

Some Marxian “Classics”

Lefebvre, Georges. The Coming of the French Revolution. trans. R.R. Palmer. Princeton U. Press, 1946.

Lefebvre, Georges. The French Revolution: from its Origins to 1793, trans. Elizabeth Moss 	Evanson. Routledge and Coumbia U. Press, 1962.

Lefebvre, Georges. The French Revolution: from 1793-1799, trans. John Hall Stewart and James 	Friguglietti. Routledge and Columbia U. Press, 1964.

Rudé, Georges. The Crowd in the French Revolution. Oxford U. Press, 1959

Soboul, Albert. ''La civilisation et la Révolution française. Vol. 1, La crise de l’ancien régime''. Arthaud, 1970

Soboul, Albert. The Sans-Culottes: The Popular Movement and the Revolution, trans. Remy 	Inglis Hall, Doubleday, 1972.

Some indispensable classics in a different key

Quinet, Edgar.  La révolution (Belin, 1987)

Palmer, Robert R. ''The Age of the Democratic Revolution. Vol. 1: The Challenge'' (Princeton U. 	Press, 1959)

Tocqueville, Alexis de. The Old Regime and the French Revolution, trans. Stuart Gilbert. Doubleday reissue, 1995 (or new trans. Published by U. of Chicago Press).

Collections of essays in the revisionist mode (some of them reprints of “classics”)

Baker, Keith Me., ed. The Political Culture of the Old Regime. Permamon, 1987, vol. 1 in The 			French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture, 4 vols., Keith 	Baker, Francois Furet and Colin Lucas, eds. Pergamon, 1987-94.

Blanning, Timothy C. W., ed. The Rise and Fall of the French Revolution. Chicago and London: 	The University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Johnson, Douglas, ed. French Society and Revolution. Cambridge U. Press, 1976.

Kates, Gary, ed. The French Revolution: Recent Debates and New Controversies. Routlege, 	1998.

Lucas, Colin, ed. Rewriting the French Revolution. Clarendon, 1991.

Van Kley, Dale K., ed. The French Idea of Freedom: The Old Regime and the French 	Declaration of Rights of 1789. Stanford U. Press, 1994.

Social-economic (and fiscal) origins in a revisionist mode

Betty Behrens, “Nobles, Privileges, and Taxes in France at the End of the Ancien Regime,” 	Economic History Review, 2nd series, 15 (1963):451-75.

Bien, David, “Offices, Corps, and a System of State Credit: The Uses of Privilege under the 	Ancien Regime” in The Political Culture of the Old Regime, ed Keith M. Baker, above.

Bien, David. La reaction aristocratique avant 1789; l’example de l’armee,” trans. J. Rovet, 	Annales E. S. C., 26 (1971):23-48, 505-34. (I have English original)

Bien, David. “The Secretaires du Roi: Absolutism, Corporatism, and Privilege under the Ancien 			Regime,” in Ernst Hinrichs, Eberhard Schmidt, and Rudoff Vierhaus, eds., De 	l’ancien regime a la Revolution francaise (Göttingen, 1978), pp. 153-68.

Bosher, John. French Finances, 1770-1795. Cambridge U. Press, 1970.

Bossenga, Gail. The Politics of Privilege: Old Regime and Revolution in Lille. Cambridge U. Press, 1991.

Chaussinand-Nogaret, Guy. La noblesse au XVIIIe siècle. Hachette, 1976.

Cobban, Alfred. The Social Interpretation of the French Revolution. Cambridge and London: 	Cambridge University Press, 1964

Doyle, William. “Was there an Aristocratic Reaction in Pre-Revolutionary France,” Past and 	Present, 57 (1972):97-122.

Garrioch, David. The Formation of the Parisian Bourgeoisie, 1690-1830. Harvard U. Press, 	1996.

Garrioch, David. Neighborhood and Community in Paris, 1740-1789. Cambridge U. Press, 	1986.

Goldstone, Jack. Revolution and Rebellion in Early-Modern Europe. California, 1991

Higonnet, Patrice. Class, Ideology and the Rights of Nobles during the French Revolution. Clarendon, 1981.

Kwass, Michael. Privilege and the Politics of Taxation in Eighteenth-Century France: Liberté, 	Egalité, Fiscalite. Cambridge U. Press, 2000.

Lucas, “Nobles, Bourgeois, and the Origins of the French Revolution,” Past and Present, 60 	(August 1973): 84-126, and in Johnson, above.

Root, Hilton. Kings and Peasants in Burgundy: Agrarian Foundations of French Absolutism. U. 	of Calif. Press, 1987.

Smith, Jay M. The Culture of Merit: Nobility, Royal Service, and the Making of Absolute 	Monarchy in France. U. of Mich. Press, 1996

Political origins (revisionist by definition)

Campbell, Peter. Power and Politics in Old-Regime France, 1720-1745. Routedge, 1996.

Doyle, William. The Origins of the French Revolution. Oxford, 1980.

Eisenstein, Elizabeth. “Who Intervened in 1788?”

Hardman, John. French Politics: 1774-1789: From the Accession of Louis XVI to the Fall of the 	Bastille. Longman, 1995.

Price, Munro. Preserving the Monarchy: The Comte de Vergennes, 1774-1787. Cambridge U. Press, 1995.

Rogister, John. Louis XV and the Parlement of Paris, 1737-1755. Cambridge U. Press, 1995.

Swann, Julian .Politics and the Parlement of Paris under Louis XV, 1754-1774. Cambridge U. Press, 1995.

Taylor, “Non-Capitalist Wealth and the Origins of the French Revolution,” AHR, 72 (1967):469-	96.

Van Kley, Dale. “Pure Politics in Absolute Space,” Journal of Modern History, 69 (December 	1997): 754-84.

Geo-Political Origins

Scokpol. Theda. Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China. Cambridge 	U. Press, 1979.

Stone, Bailey. The Genesis of the French Revolution: A Global Historical Interpretation. Cambridge U. Press, 1994.

Wallerstein, Emmanuel. There’s an article somewhere by him that’s pertinent.

Cultural origins in a revisionist mode

Chartier, Roger. The Cultural Origins of the French Revolution, trans. Lydia Cochrane. Duke U. Press, 1991.

Hunt, Lynn. Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution. U. of Calif. Press, 1984.

Sarah Maza’s “Luxury, Morality, and Social Change: Why There was no Middle-Class 	Consciousness in Prerevolutionary France, Journal of Modern History, June

Maza, Sarah. Private Lives and Public Affairs: The Causes Célèbres of Prerevolutionary France. California, 1993.

Intellectual origins in a revisionist mode

Baker, Keith. Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on Political Culture in Eighteenth Century 	France. Cambridge, 1990.

Darnton, Robert. The Forbidden Best Sellers of Prerevolutionary France. Norton, 1995, plus 			most if not all of Darnton’s work listed under cultural and social history of the 	Enlightenment above.

Furet, François. Interpreting the French Revolution, trans. Elborg Forster. Cambridge, 1981.

Religious-intellectual origins in a (perforce) revisionist mode

Maire, Catherine. La cause de Dieu a la cause de la nation: le jansenisme du XVIIIe siecle 	(Gallimard, 1998).

Van Kley, “The Estates General as Ecumenical Council.” Journal of Modern History, 61 (March 	1989):1-52

Van Kley, Dale K. The Religious Origins of the French Revolution: From Calvin to the Civil 	Constitution, 1560-1791. Yale, paper ed., Nov. 1999.

Woodbridge, John. Revolt in Prerevolutionary France: The Prince de Conti’s Conspiracy against Louis XV, 1755-1757. John Hopkins U. Press, 1994.

Some (more or less) Marxian restatements

Colin Jones, “The Great Chain of Buying,” in ???

Comninel, George C. Rethinking the French Revolution: Marxism and the Revisionist 	Challenge. Verso, 1987.

Post-revisionism

Vivien Gruder, “Whither Revisionism?” French Historical Studies, ???

The above list, while in obvious draft form, nevertheless reflects what professional historians and professors consider to be THE essential readings on the French Revolution. Sincerely, --164.107.92.120 17:56, 16 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Please, feel free to add this material to the article, in similar style to what we've got. By the way, I have to say: over half of these, I haven't even heard of. But then, this is an area where I'm definitely amateur. - Jmabel | Talk 06:12, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, please please help! Also a confirmed amateur. Foraminifera 03:25, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

About Rancière's book: The Names of History: On the Poetics of Knowledge
The book it self does not tackle the French Ravolution in particular, since it focusses more towards a philosophy of history direction. However it does discuss the different historiographic approaches taken by different historians in the matter of understanding and explaning of The French Revolution -particularly the works of Michelet and Furet-. Therefore I would consider valuable to discuss whether to incorporate some of Rancière views, condensed in his book: "The Names of History: On the Poetics of Knowledge" in this article o not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)

A concerned Wikipedian - 12 Feb 08 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.101.152.68 (talk) 12:13, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Someone has vandalised the list of authors at the bottom of this page

Nationality of Featured Historians
Although perhaps a seemingly minor issue, yet nonetheless of significant importance, is that there is a slant towards featuring more English/American historians than French historians in this specific article. The addition of other historians of French or otherwise European nationality would perhaps provide a fuller picture of French Revolution historiography over the last two centuries. Kfodderst (talk) 08:28, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Nesta Webster
I deleted the section on Nesta Webster as per WP:FRINGE. She was never an influence on academical historiography, and no sources was provided to show that she was, except a primary quotation of Churchill (thus also violating WP:SYNTH). Google Scholar contains no evidence that she was or is used outside an occult/astrology circle. --Saddhiyama (talk) 11:24, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * As a historian in the field of French history, particularly in regards to the French Revolution, I agree it is not a major view. But it is a view, nonetheless, and definitely not to be discarded simply as a 'minor' view, let alone deleted altogether. I have reduced its length, and instead allowed that idea to flourish and be expanded on her page. As it stands now, it should not be deleted. There is no violation of WP:SYNTH as it has merely been stated that Churchill followed this idea. Kfodderst (talk) 12:01, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It is a violation of WP:SYNTH if the quotation of Churchill is used to exemplify the notability of Webster. As WP:FRINGE makes clear: "Claims must be based upon independent reliable sources. An idea that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight in an article about a mainstream idea,[3] and reliable sources must be cited that affirm the relationship of the marginal idea to the mainstream idea in a serious and substantial manner".
 * As it stands Webster was neither a pioneer in the concoction of conspiracy theories that the Masonry and Illuminati or the Jews had a particular hand in the French Revolution. Such theories went back as far as the time of the French Revolution itself. Neither can any notability be found in the historiography of the French Revolution in the last century. Outside the field of occultism, astrology and other non-academic sources, she is simply not mentioned in academic discourse on this subject. So I am going to give you a deadline of a week to find reliable noteworthy secondary sources that establishes the claim of her noteworthiness in the historiography of the French Revolution. --Saddhiyama (talk) 13:01, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I do not have access to JStor, but can somebody have a look on that I found through this Scholar search? --Anneyh (talk) 15:29, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Churchill was not making an analysis of the French Revolution (he was talking about Jews and the 1/2 sentence used is taken out of context). To make a claim about Churchill you need a reliable secondary source that analyzes Churchill's views of the French Revolution. Rjensen (talk) 16:58, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

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Interpretations
Hello all

Another editor added some information from the Historiography section of the French Revolution article. I have edited this and added some other information in order to provide more context for the discussion of individual authors in this article. This might result in some repetition of information, but I will try to work through this over the next couple of days to tidy things up.

Happy to discuss. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 05:32, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Restructure of article
Hello all 1) I have restructured the article to make it more logical. In the previous structure, information was presented in a confusing mix of chronological, thematic and biographical sections with often wasn't internally consistent. I have made the main structure chronological with major sections on: 19th century, 20th century and modern (1980 to present). I have added short introductory paragraphs to each major section to present thematic issues. 2) I have added sourced information on a number of historians. I have also removed some unsourced information and summarised some information on minor historians. 3) I have also summarised information on major historians to better focus on historiography; namely: a) Their major works; b) Their interpretation of the Revolution c) Their historical method; d) Their influence on other historians. This means I have sometimes removed tangential information which is better covered by the main article on the historian. For example, the information on Thiers' political carer is best covered in the main article on him. Similarly, while it is interesting that the first draft of Carlyle's history of the Revolution was accidently burnt, this has nothing to do with its historical importance and is fully covered in the main article on this book. Happy to discuss. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 00:14, 16 August 2023 (UTC)