Histoire de la Révolution Française, Volume 1 (Cambridge Library Collection - European History)

by Louis Blanc

Louis Blanc (1811–82) was a French historian and politician whose writings had a considerable influence on the development of French socialism. In his famous Organisation du travail (1839) he called for social reform by action of the State. As a member of the provisional government established after the 1848 Revolution, he campaigned for workers' rights, advocating the creation of cooperative workshops. His twelve-volume Histoire de la Révolution Française (1847–62), most of which he wrote while in exile in England, combines years of thorough research with Blanc's characteristic socialist and republican enthusiasm. Volume 1, first published in 1847, traces the intellectual origins of the French Revolution to the development of individualism, first in Protestantism, and then in the Enlightenment. It spans four centuries, from the origins of Protestantism with the Czech priest Jan Hus, to the reign of Louis XIV, to the political philosophies of Voltaire and Montesquieu.

602 pages, Paperback

First published November 3, 2011

About the author

Louis Jean Joseph Charles Blanc (1811-1882) was a French politician and historian. A socialist who favored reforms, he called for the creation of cooperatives in order to guarantee employment for the urban poor.

Following the Revolution of 1848, Blanc became a member of the provisional government and began advocating for cooperatives which would be initially aided by the government but ultimately controlled by the workers themselves. Blanc's advocacy failed and caught between radical worker tendencies and the National Guard he was forced into exile. Blanc returned to France in 1870, shortly before the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian war and served as a member of the National Assembly. While he did not support the Paris Commune, Blanc successfully proposed amnesty to the Communards.

Although Blanc's ideas of the workers' cooperatives were never realized, his political and social ideas greatly contributed to the development of socialism in France.