I usually really like books from the "Que sais-je ?" ("What do I know?") collection, which covers important subjects in a compact format, using a no-nonsense approach to describe the most important aspects as objectively as possible. This one is no exception; in 120 pages you get a sense of what happened during the French revolution, from 1789 to Napoléon's coup in 1799, focusing mostly on the more eventful years 1789-1794 (constitutional monarchy and first republic).
If you're French (like me) then the revolution is part of your culture and identity, whether you know its history or not. Your original sin is regicide by decapitation, and you're proud of it. You believe that the people ought to fight for their rights, violently if needed; and yet you also believe that they can't be trusted to think rationally... And you don't know what to do with this contradiction. All this is characteristic of the French revolution. It was an event that made modern France; an adventure that lost France the world (setting France back economically and demographically, and allowing the United Kingdom to develop a decisive economic and strategic advantage), but which shaped the world in France's image, via ideological influence and military conquest. It was the theater of great crimes and of great advances.
Reading this in 2022, it's easy to find parallels with modern or even contemporary events. The more barbarous exactions of the French Revolution reminded me of portrayals of the Chinese cultural revolution (in novels like Brothers, The Three-Body problem, etc.). The manipulation of violent crowds to pressure parliament was reminiscent of the recent "Capitol Insurrection" in the US. Indeed, France was the first major nation (at the time, the US colonies had under 4 million inhabitants spread thinly over an enormous landmass) to implement popular democracy, and to discover its pitfalls by trial and error. Thus the French revolution signaled the arrival of a modernity built out of ambitious principles, of volatile public opinion, of disinformation; hesitating between nationalism, liberalism, individualism, and some early hints of socialism; prone to get carried away by its own momentum, leading occasionally to large-scale outbursts of violence, some of them genocidal, as in the Vendée area.
In a sense, the French revolution never ended. It slowed down a little, and it expanded in scope to the entire world. We are still living through it today, grappling with the same questions, and tinkering with the same sorts of solutions. How to organize and govern a society of "equals"? How can "Virtue" (justice, happiness) rule, without "Terror" (violence, constraint)? What is the correct balance between social progress and prudent stability? Between equality in rights, and equality in fact (economic inequality)? Should we prefer representatives and leaders that are feeble like Louis XVI, ideologically pure like Robespierre, shrewd like Danton, or personally ambitious like Napoléon? ...
Summing up: the subject is fascinating, the book is well-written and succinct. It's not entertainment, there's no jokes or fluff. I'm also not sure how up-to-date this is; the bibliography only mentions books from the 80s (over 30 years ago!) but it seems the rest of the content was updated with the numerous re-editions since the first edition in 1989 (goodreads says 1981, but I'm going to go with what the book itself says...). So, if you want to improve your understanding of that period with a short and authoritative book, this is an excellent option.