The French Revolution: A History in Documents

The French Revolution: A History in Documents explores the rapidly evolving political culture of the French Revolution through first-hand accounts of the revolutionary (and counterrevolutionary) actors themselves.It demonstrates how radical Enlightenment philosophy fused with a governmental crisis to create a moment of new political possibilities unlike any the world had previously seen.In so doing, the French and their allies generated a template for revolutionary possibility from which virtually all subsequent political movements - liberalism, abolitionism, socialism, anarchism, conservatism, feminism and human rights included - derived inspiration. As well as providing an invaluable general introduction, vital contextual notes and thematic bibliographies, Micah Alpaugh selects a fascinating range of pieces, drawing on Parisian, provincial, colonial, and even international voices.From Enlightened dissent to apologias for terror, from declarations of human rights to accounts of slave