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Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre
How the Radical Enlightenment inspired and shaped the French Revolution
Historians of the French Revolution used to take for granted what was also obvious to its contemporary observers--that the Revolution was caused by the radical ideas of the Enlightenment. Yet in recent decades scholars have argued that the Revolution was brought about by social forces, politics, economics, or culture--almost anything but abstract notions like liberty or equality. In Revolutionary Ideas, one of the world's leading historians of the Enlightenment restores the Revolution's intellectual history to its rightful central role. Drawing widely on primary sources, Jonathan Israel shows how the Revolution was set in motion by radical eighteenth-century doctrines, how these ideas divided revolutionary leaders into vehemently opposed ideological blocs, and how these clashes drove the turning points of the Revolution.
Revolutionary Ideas demonstrates that the Revolution was really three different revolutions vying for supremacy--a conflict between constitutional monarchists such as Lafayette who advocated moderate Enlightenment ideas; democratic republicans allied to Tom Paine who fought for Radical Enlightenment ideas; and authoritarian populists, such as Robespierre, who violently rejected key Enlightenment ideas and should ultimately be seen as Counter-Enlightenment figures. The book tells how the fierce rivalry between these groups shaped the course of the Revolution, from the Declaration of Rights, through liberal monarchism and democratic republicanism, to the Terror and the Post-Thermidor reaction.
In this compelling account, the French Revolution stands once again as a culmination of the emancipatory and democratic ideals of the Enlightenment. That it ended in the Terror represented a betrayal of those ideas--not their fulfillment.
Historians of the French Revolution used to take for granted what was also obvious to its contemporary observers--that the Revolution was caused by the radical ideas of the Enlightenment. Yet in recent decades scholars have argued that the Revolution was brought about by social forces, politics, economics, or culture--almost anything but abstract notions like liberty or equality. In Revolutionary Ideas, one of the world's leading historians of the Enlightenment restores the Revolution's intellectual history to its rightful central role. Drawing widely on primary sources, Jonathan Israel shows how the Revolution was set in motion by radical eighteenth-century doctrines, how these ideas divided revolutionary leaders into vehemently opposed ideological blocs, and how these clashes drove the turning points of the Revolution.
Revolutionary Ideas demonstrates that the Revolution was really three different revolutions vying for supremacy--a conflict between constitutional monarchists such as Lafayette who advocated moderate Enlightenment ideas; democratic republicans allied to Tom Paine who fought for Radical Enlightenment ideas; and authoritarian populists, such as Robespierre, who violently rejected key Enlightenment ideas and should ultimately be seen as Counter-Enlightenment figures. The book tells how the fierce rivalry between these groups shaped the course of the Revolution, from the Declaration of Rights, through liberal monarchism and democratic republicanism, to the Terror and the Post-Thermidor reaction.
In this compelling account, the French Revolution stands once again as a culmination of the emancipatory and democratic ideals of the Enlightenment. That it ended in the Terror represented a betrayal of those ideas--not their fulfillment.
888 pages, Hardcover
First published March 23, 2014
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About the author
Jonathan I. Israel
55 books159 followersJonathan Irvine Israel is a British writer on Dutch history, the Age of Enlightenment and European Jews. Israel was appointed as Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, in January 2001. He was previously Professor of Dutch History and Institutions at the University of London.
In recent years, Israel has focused his attention on a multi-volume history of the Age of Enlightenment. He contrasts two camps. The "radical Enlightenment" founded on a rationalist materialism first articulated by Spinoza. Standing in opposition was a "moderate Enlightenment" which he sees as profoundly weakened by its belief in God. In Israel’s highly controversial interpretation, the radical Enlightenment is the main source of the modern idea of freedom. He contends that the moderate Enlightenment, including Locke, Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau, made no real contribution to the campaign against superstition and ignorance.
In recent years, Israel has focused his attention on a multi-volume history of the Age of Enlightenment. He contrasts two camps. The "radical Enlightenment" founded on a rationalist materialism first articulated by Spinoza. Standing in opposition was a "moderate Enlightenment" which he sees as profoundly weakened by its belief in God. In Israel’s highly controversial interpretation, the radical Enlightenment is the main source of the modern idea of freedom. He contends that the moderate Enlightenment, including Locke, Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau, made no real contribution to the campaign against superstition and ignorance.
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July 11, 2014
Revolutionary Ideas is the latest in an ambitious series of books in which historian Professor Jonathan Israel has traced the Enlightenment from its beginnings in the seventeenth century to the French Revolution of the late eighteenth century. The series began with Radical Enlightenment (2001) continued with Enlightenment Contested (2006) which was followed by A Revolution of the Mind (2010) and Democratic Enlightenment (2011).
A single thesis runs through the entire series. It is that a set of ideas emerged in the late seventeenth century which Professor Israel identifies as belonging to the Radical Enlightenment as distinct from a more conservative, Moderate Enlightenment. The Radical Enlightenment originated, Israel argues, in the work of the philosopher Benedict Spinoza and can be traced in the works of Pierre Bayle to Denis Diderot and the Holbach circle in eighteenth century France. Now in this latest volume he examines the role of the ideas of the Radical Enlightenment in the French Revolution.
The book covers the period from the beginning of the revolution in 1789 to Thermidor and the fall of Robespierre in 1794 and ends with the rise of Napoleon in 1799. Israel concludes that “Radical Enlightenment was incontrovertibly the one ‘big’ cause of the French Revolution.” His search for causes is out of step with a strong tendency among historians to dismiss causation as a valid category of analysis. The French Revolution is now more often seen as a purely accidental event which scarcely does justice to a phenomenon that altered European and, arguably, global history. Whether one agrees with Israel’s identification of ideas as the fundamental cause of the French Revolution or not it is positive that he has brought the question to the attention of readers and students once more.
For Israel the French Revolution is a ‘revolution of ideas’ which paved the way for a ‘revolution of events’. The revolution of ideas was, he argues, under way even before the Estates General convened in April 1789. The cafés, publishing presses and meeting places of the Palais Royal were at the centre of this revolution of ideas and he traces the part that those who congregated there played in the early phases of the revolution. Essentially the group he has in mind are the followers of Jacques Pierre Brissot, or the Girondins, as they are often known. They shared, Israel argues, a coherent philosophical and political programme based on materialism, atheism, republicanism and a belief in the equality of humanity. It was they, in his view, who established the revolution’s core values - human rights, black emancipation, women’s rights and representative democracy. They were the real leaders of the revolution and sought to achieve change by constitutional, non-violent means. It was only later that the revolution took a violent turn.
He attributes the turn to violence to what he describes as Robespierre’s putsch in June 1793. Robespierre did not share the values of the true revolutionaries, according to Israel, because he was not a materialist or an atheist and came only belatedly to republicanism. He was, Israel argues, an obsessive, puritanical disciple of Rousseau rather than a follower of the Holbach circle like the Girondins. He rejected their internationalism and adopted a narrowly nationalistic view of the revolution and its objectives.
Robespierre is usually regarded as a central figure in the revolution, one of its most left wing leaders, but Israel rejects this conception. He regards Robespierre as the gravedigger of the revolution, rather than its leader and a conservative rather than a radical. He argues that Robespierre played little part in the early stages of the revolution and only came to power by murdering its real leaders and imposing a system of Terror that overthrew the core values of the revolution.
The Terror was the means by which Robespierre maintained his hold on power because he had so little support in the country at large. His political ideology was in essence a form of ‘authoritarian populism’, according to Israel, with which he manipulated the “militant but erratic sans culottes” who were an “anarchic, inconsistent, ebbing and flowing element with little cognizance of the general scenario”. Even among the sans culottes “only some of the most illiterate” were drawn to Robespierre.
Rather than being the inevitable consequence of the revolution, as many have argued, the Terror now becomes the antithesis of the revolution. Rather than leading to the Terror the revolution was ended by it. The question is how does Israel’s theory stack up against the evidence?
In the first place it must be pointed out that Robespierre was not alone in his admiration for Rousseau. Brissot himself was influenced by Rousseau and so were many of those associated with him. Robespierre was to a great extent drawing on a common stock of ideas from which they developed political initiatives over time. It would not be correct to present either Brissot or Robespierre as emerging with a fully formed ideology or political programme at the beginning of the revolution.
The conflict between Robespierre and the Girondins began over the question of war. Robespierre opposed waging a European war because he thought that it would strengthen the army and increase the chances of a military dictator coming to power. His concerns proved to be well founded. Napoleon Bonaparte was not the first general to consider the possibility of a military coup. Lafayette, Dumouriez and Joubert were all generals who in their turn eyed political power. Robespierre seems to have had some political foresight on this matter.
Later socio-economic issues divided them. By 1793 the war was going disastrously badly and armed counter-revolution had broken out in several parts of France including major provincial cities. The economy deteriorated under the strain. The food supply, always vulnerable even before the revolution, now became extremely precarious.
For artisans and labourers who relied on wages, for small property owners such as shopkeepers and master craftsmen the situation was desperate. Those already in poverty faced starvation and even the more prosperous were forced into poverty. These were the sans culottes - the people who wore the cheaper and more practical trousers rather than the elegant knee breeches of the upper layers of society. They repeatedly petitioned the Convention for price controls on essential commodities such as food and soap.
For the Girondins the free market was a matter of principle. To interfere with the operation of the market was to infringe property rights. They believed that the free market would eventually bring prices to an affordable level if it was allowed to operate without government interference. To begin with Robespierre shared their faith in the market. After all the regulations of the ancien regime had not prevented famine. But gradually he came to a different view and in doing so widened his conception of what equality meant.
“The first social law,” Robespierre insisted, “is therefore that which guarantees the means of existence to all the members of society; all other [laws] are subordinate to this one; property is only instituted or guaranteed to affirm it ... It is not true that property can ever be held in opposition to man’s subsistence.” [Ruth Scurr, Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution, London: Vintage Books, 2007, p. 245]
It was speeches like this that won Robespierre support among the sans culottes and came to characterise a group known as the Mountain because they occupied the highest benches in the Convention hall. The group included Robespierre, Danton, Desmoulins and Marat. When Marat published the slogan “Tax the rich to subsidize the poor” the Girondins condemned him. They put him on trial in front of the Revolutionary Tribunal, but he was acquitted and carried from the room in triumph.
It was in this crisis for the revolution that one of the Girondins deputies made a speech in the Convention threatening to annihilate Paris and the sans culottes. The response came on June 2 1793 when thousands of sans culottes and the National Guard surrounded the Convention. They demanded that the Girondins deputies be put on trial. It is this insurrection that Israel regards as a putsch. But that is misleading. The term implies that Robespierre had some form of military power, which he did not. The National Guard was working with the Paris Commune, a body in which Robespierre had influence but no overwhelming authority. It also implies that the Girondins were a government, which they were not. France did not have an effective government in the summer of 1793. Power was shared between the ministers, the committees of the Convention and increasingly the Commune of Paris. The events of June 1793 might just as easily be described as a failed bid for power by Brissot and the Girondins. Had they succeeded in defeating Robespierre and the Mountain the outcome might have been even bloodier if they had carried out the threat to wage war on Paris and the sans culottes.
The Mountain never had a majority in the Convention and Robespierre did not hold dictatorial authority even after June 1793. Power was gradually centralised in the Committee of Public Safety, which acted as a kind of war cabinet, but Robespierre never controlled it and always had to argue his case with the other deputies. Such power as he had depended on his relationship with the sans culottes. It was his support among the sans culottes that made Robespierre one of the most radical of the revolutionary leaders. To regard him as a conservative is to miss the point. He was a radical because he took social equality seriously.
The Terror has left the most enduring image of the French Revolution. It was born out of the military crisis when Toulon fell to the British in September 1793. A counter-attack had to be organised but conscripts refused to leave for the front unless they could be sure that their families and the revolution would be safe in their absence. An uncontrolled massacre of prisoners and suspects threatened to break out as it had done in the September Massacres of 1792 when the Prussian army was advancing on Paris. The sans culottes feared that an aristocratic plot would break out and counter-revolutionaries would take power in Paris in advance of the invading armies. The Terror was an attempt to prevent a repeat of that spontaneous violence.
It lasted approximately nine months during which some 30,000 people died. Most of the executions took place in cities that had rebelled against Paris. Almost 2,000 people were executed when Lyons was retaken by revolutionary forces. It is thought that 3,500 died at Nantes, some 1,800 of them in the noyades, when victims were tied together and set adrift in leaking boats. Horrific though these events were, they were not exceptional by the standards of the time. Almost as many people - approximately 20,000 - died in the space of one day when the Russians captured Warsaw in 1794.
The largest death toll was not in the Terror but in the war to defeat the royalist uprising in La Vendée. A quarter of a million people may have died in this campaign. Exact figures are not known but the population of the region did not return to its pre-revolutionary levels until the 1820s. It could be argued that France experienced its revolutionary war and its civil war at the same time. A similar process took a century to complete in the USA.
Robespierre had very little control over the Terror. Outside Paris he had no direct control. Members of the Convention operated on their own authority and without reference to any central body. It was an anarchic process. Once it had begun it became very difficult to halt. To suggest that the Terror should end was to risk becoming its victim. Ironically it was as Robespierre attempted to curtail the Terror outside Paris that he fell from power. The reason Robespierre’s opponents gave for executing him in July 1794 was not his extremism but his moderation. Those who led the Thermidor plot against him were members of the Convention recalled from the areas in revolt who knew that they would have to account for their actions. Among them was Joseph Fouché who had been prominent in the de-christianization campaign and had carried out massacres in Lyon. He would go on to become chief of police under Napoleon and the restored Bourbons.
For Fouché and others like him Robespierre became a convenient scapegoat. They could shrug off their part in the Terror and blame Robespierre alone. It was a convenient fiction and one that has influenced historians ever since. Robespierre has become the bloody handed dictator prefiguring twentieth century dictators such as Stalin and Hitler. As an historical analysis it lacks precision and is entirely unsupported by the evidence.
The immediate result of Thermidor was an economic catastrophe as the free market was restored. Inflation increased dramatically. Famine spread as peasants hoarded their grain. The universal adult male franchise was abolished. Only those with property had the right to vote. Even so elections were repeatedly annulled by the two Directory governments. Private contractors made vast profits out of supplying the army while the poor starved. This was government by the rich, for the rich.
When the sans culottes attempted another insurrection in May 1795 they were defeated. For the first time since the beginning of the revolution the army was used against the population of Paris. Troops surrounded the Faubourg Saint-Antoine and forced a surrender. A Military Commission executed the leaders of the insurrection leaving the sans culottes broken as a political force. By the time Babeuf tried to organise an uprising the following year it was impossible to revive the revolutionary movement of the earlier period.
Many of the Girondins gradually re-emerged into public life after the fall of Robespierre. Israel regards this as a resurgence of the core values of the revolution. But it was they who engineered Napoleon Bonaparte’s coup d’etat.
Siéyes was the author of the pamphlet What is the Third Estate? which was one of the seminal statements of the early days of the revolution. He had voted for the execution of Louis XVI and had helped to draft the Girondins’ constitution. But he also drafted the Constitution of the Year VIII which brought himself and Napoleon to power as consuls. No doubt Siéyes imagined that he would wield real political power but he underestimated his colleague who soon dispensed with all democratic processes and declared himself emperor. France now had a genuine dictator with far more power than Robespierre had ever possessed.
In the end Israel’s determination to portray Robespierre as the villain of the piece compromises his own thesis that the ideas of the Enlightenment were progressive and have contributed to the development of a more democratic society. What emerged from Thermidor was by no means democratic. It entrenched the power of the wealthy. The ideas of the Enlightenment certainly were progressive and they are undoubtedly worth defending today but it cannot be done by excising Robespierre from the revolution. At a time when social inequality is approaching levels not seen for a century, Marat’s call to “Tax the rich to subsidize the poor” has a definite resonance. Whilst the issues today may be access to housing, education and health care rather than bread, the rights of private property are being placed in opposition to human life just as surely as they were in Robespierre’s day.
A single thesis runs through the entire series. It is that a set of ideas emerged in the late seventeenth century which Professor Israel identifies as belonging to the Radical Enlightenment as distinct from a more conservative, Moderate Enlightenment. The Radical Enlightenment originated, Israel argues, in the work of the philosopher Benedict Spinoza and can be traced in the works of Pierre Bayle to Denis Diderot and the Holbach circle in eighteenth century France. Now in this latest volume he examines the role of the ideas of the Radical Enlightenment in the French Revolution.
The book covers the period from the beginning of the revolution in 1789 to Thermidor and the fall of Robespierre in 1794 and ends with the rise of Napoleon in 1799. Israel concludes that “Radical Enlightenment was incontrovertibly the one ‘big’ cause of the French Revolution.” His search for causes is out of step with a strong tendency among historians to dismiss causation as a valid category of analysis. The French Revolution is now more often seen as a purely accidental event which scarcely does justice to a phenomenon that altered European and, arguably, global history. Whether one agrees with Israel’s identification of ideas as the fundamental cause of the French Revolution or not it is positive that he has brought the question to the attention of readers and students once more.
For Israel the French Revolution is a ‘revolution of ideas’ which paved the way for a ‘revolution of events’. The revolution of ideas was, he argues, under way even before the Estates General convened in April 1789. The cafés, publishing presses and meeting places of the Palais Royal were at the centre of this revolution of ideas and he traces the part that those who congregated there played in the early phases of the revolution. Essentially the group he has in mind are the followers of Jacques Pierre Brissot, or the Girondins, as they are often known. They shared, Israel argues, a coherent philosophical and political programme based on materialism, atheism, republicanism and a belief in the equality of humanity. It was they, in his view, who established the revolution’s core values - human rights, black emancipation, women’s rights and representative democracy. They were the real leaders of the revolution and sought to achieve change by constitutional, non-violent means. It was only later that the revolution took a violent turn.
He attributes the turn to violence to what he describes as Robespierre’s putsch in June 1793. Robespierre did not share the values of the true revolutionaries, according to Israel, because he was not a materialist or an atheist and came only belatedly to republicanism. He was, Israel argues, an obsessive, puritanical disciple of Rousseau rather than a follower of the Holbach circle like the Girondins. He rejected their internationalism and adopted a narrowly nationalistic view of the revolution and its objectives.
Robespierre is usually regarded as a central figure in the revolution, one of its most left wing leaders, but Israel rejects this conception. He regards Robespierre as the gravedigger of the revolution, rather than its leader and a conservative rather than a radical. He argues that Robespierre played little part in the early stages of the revolution and only came to power by murdering its real leaders and imposing a system of Terror that overthrew the core values of the revolution.
The Terror was the means by which Robespierre maintained his hold on power because he had so little support in the country at large. His political ideology was in essence a form of ‘authoritarian populism’, according to Israel, with which he manipulated the “militant but erratic sans culottes” who were an “anarchic, inconsistent, ebbing and flowing element with little cognizance of the general scenario”. Even among the sans culottes “only some of the most illiterate” were drawn to Robespierre.
Rather than being the inevitable consequence of the revolution, as many have argued, the Terror now becomes the antithesis of the revolution. Rather than leading to the Terror the revolution was ended by it. The question is how does Israel’s theory stack up against the evidence?
In the first place it must be pointed out that Robespierre was not alone in his admiration for Rousseau. Brissot himself was influenced by Rousseau and so were many of those associated with him. Robespierre was to a great extent drawing on a common stock of ideas from which they developed political initiatives over time. It would not be correct to present either Brissot or Robespierre as emerging with a fully formed ideology or political programme at the beginning of the revolution.
The conflict between Robespierre and the Girondins began over the question of war. Robespierre opposed waging a European war because he thought that it would strengthen the army and increase the chances of a military dictator coming to power. His concerns proved to be well founded. Napoleon Bonaparte was not the first general to consider the possibility of a military coup. Lafayette, Dumouriez and Joubert were all generals who in their turn eyed political power. Robespierre seems to have had some political foresight on this matter.
Later socio-economic issues divided them. By 1793 the war was going disastrously badly and armed counter-revolution had broken out in several parts of France including major provincial cities. The economy deteriorated under the strain. The food supply, always vulnerable even before the revolution, now became extremely precarious.
For artisans and labourers who relied on wages, for small property owners such as shopkeepers and master craftsmen the situation was desperate. Those already in poverty faced starvation and even the more prosperous were forced into poverty. These were the sans culottes - the people who wore the cheaper and more practical trousers rather than the elegant knee breeches of the upper layers of society. They repeatedly petitioned the Convention for price controls on essential commodities such as food and soap.
For the Girondins the free market was a matter of principle. To interfere with the operation of the market was to infringe property rights. They believed that the free market would eventually bring prices to an affordable level if it was allowed to operate without government interference. To begin with Robespierre shared their faith in the market. After all the regulations of the ancien regime had not prevented famine. But gradually he came to a different view and in doing so widened his conception of what equality meant.
“The first social law,” Robespierre insisted, “is therefore that which guarantees the means of existence to all the members of society; all other [laws] are subordinate to this one; property is only instituted or guaranteed to affirm it ... It is not true that property can ever be held in opposition to man’s subsistence.” [Ruth Scurr, Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution, London: Vintage Books, 2007, p. 245]
It was speeches like this that won Robespierre support among the sans culottes and came to characterise a group known as the Mountain because they occupied the highest benches in the Convention hall. The group included Robespierre, Danton, Desmoulins and Marat. When Marat published the slogan “Tax the rich to subsidize the poor” the Girondins condemned him. They put him on trial in front of the Revolutionary Tribunal, but he was acquitted and carried from the room in triumph.
It was in this crisis for the revolution that one of the Girondins deputies made a speech in the Convention threatening to annihilate Paris and the sans culottes. The response came on June 2 1793 when thousands of sans culottes and the National Guard surrounded the Convention. They demanded that the Girondins deputies be put on trial. It is this insurrection that Israel regards as a putsch. But that is misleading. The term implies that Robespierre had some form of military power, which he did not. The National Guard was working with the Paris Commune, a body in which Robespierre had influence but no overwhelming authority. It also implies that the Girondins were a government, which they were not. France did not have an effective government in the summer of 1793. Power was shared between the ministers, the committees of the Convention and increasingly the Commune of Paris. The events of June 1793 might just as easily be described as a failed bid for power by Brissot and the Girondins. Had they succeeded in defeating Robespierre and the Mountain the outcome might have been even bloodier if they had carried out the threat to wage war on Paris and the sans culottes.
The Mountain never had a majority in the Convention and Robespierre did not hold dictatorial authority even after June 1793. Power was gradually centralised in the Committee of Public Safety, which acted as a kind of war cabinet, but Robespierre never controlled it and always had to argue his case with the other deputies. Such power as he had depended on his relationship with the sans culottes. It was his support among the sans culottes that made Robespierre one of the most radical of the revolutionary leaders. To regard him as a conservative is to miss the point. He was a radical because he took social equality seriously.
The Terror has left the most enduring image of the French Revolution. It was born out of the military crisis when Toulon fell to the British in September 1793. A counter-attack had to be organised but conscripts refused to leave for the front unless they could be sure that their families and the revolution would be safe in their absence. An uncontrolled massacre of prisoners and suspects threatened to break out as it had done in the September Massacres of 1792 when the Prussian army was advancing on Paris. The sans culottes feared that an aristocratic plot would break out and counter-revolutionaries would take power in Paris in advance of the invading armies. The Terror was an attempt to prevent a repeat of that spontaneous violence.
It lasted approximately nine months during which some 30,000 people died. Most of the executions took place in cities that had rebelled against Paris. Almost 2,000 people were executed when Lyons was retaken by revolutionary forces. It is thought that 3,500 died at Nantes, some 1,800 of them in the noyades, when victims were tied together and set adrift in leaking boats. Horrific though these events were, they were not exceptional by the standards of the time. Almost as many people - approximately 20,000 - died in the space of one day when the Russians captured Warsaw in 1794.
The largest death toll was not in the Terror but in the war to defeat the royalist uprising in La Vendée. A quarter of a million people may have died in this campaign. Exact figures are not known but the population of the region did not return to its pre-revolutionary levels until the 1820s. It could be argued that France experienced its revolutionary war and its civil war at the same time. A similar process took a century to complete in the USA.
Robespierre had very little control over the Terror. Outside Paris he had no direct control. Members of the Convention operated on their own authority and without reference to any central body. It was an anarchic process. Once it had begun it became very difficult to halt. To suggest that the Terror should end was to risk becoming its victim. Ironically it was as Robespierre attempted to curtail the Terror outside Paris that he fell from power. The reason Robespierre’s opponents gave for executing him in July 1794 was not his extremism but his moderation. Those who led the Thermidor plot against him were members of the Convention recalled from the areas in revolt who knew that they would have to account for their actions. Among them was Joseph Fouché who had been prominent in the de-christianization campaign and had carried out massacres in Lyon. He would go on to become chief of police under Napoleon and the restored Bourbons.
For Fouché and others like him Robespierre became a convenient scapegoat. They could shrug off their part in the Terror and blame Robespierre alone. It was a convenient fiction and one that has influenced historians ever since. Robespierre has become the bloody handed dictator prefiguring twentieth century dictators such as Stalin and Hitler. As an historical analysis it lacks precision and is entirely unsupported by the evidence.
The immediate result of Thermidor was an economic catastrophe as the free market was restored. Inflation increased dramatically. Famine spread as peasants hoarded their grain. The universal adult male franchise was abolished. Only those with property had the right to vote. Even so elections were repeatedly annulled by the two Directory governments. Private contractors made vast profits out of supplying the army while the poor starved. This was government by the rich, for the rich.
When the sans culottes attempted another insurrection in May 1795 they were defeated. For the first time since the beginning of the revolution the army was used against the population of Paris. Troops surrounded the Faubourg Saint-Antoine and forced a surrender. A Military Commission executed the leaders of the insurrection leaving the sans culottes broken as a political force. By the time Babeuf tried to organise an uprising the following year it was impossible to revive the revolutionary movement of the earlier period.
Many of the Girondins gradually re-emerged into public life after the fall of Robespierre. Israel regards this as a resurgence of the core values of the revolution. But it was they who engineered Napoleon Bonaparte’s coup d’etat.
Siéyes was the author of the pamphlet What is the Third Estate? which was one of the seminal statements of the early days of the revolution. He had voted for the execution of Louis XVI and had helped to draft the Girondins’ constitution. But he also drafted the Constitution of the Year VIII which brought himself and Napoleon to power as consuls. No doubt Siéyes imagined that he would wield real political power but he underestimated his colleague who soon dispensed with all democratic processes and declared himself emperor. France now had a genuine dictator with far more power than Robespierre had ever possessed.
In the end Israel’s determination to portray Robespierre as the villain of the piece compromises his own thesis that the ideas of the Enlightenment were progressive and have contributed to the development of a more democratic society. What emerged from Thermidor was by no means democratic. It entrenched the power of the wealthy. The ideas of the Enlightenment certainly were progressive and they are undoubtedly worth defending today but it cannot be done by excising Robespierre from the revolution. At a time when social inequality is approaching levels not seen for a century, Marat’s call to “Tax the rich to subsidize the poor” has a definite resonance. Whilst the issues today may be access to housing, education and health care rather than bread, the rights of private property are being placed in opposition to human life just as surely as they were in Robespierre’s day.
February 1, 2019
The problem with trying to learn about the French Revolution is that it is nearly impossible to describe it clearly without (explicitly or implicitly) assuming an ideological stance in relation to it. Even seemingly uninflected factual descriptions struggle to avoid this; narrative choices are inevitably made that imply judgments.
Worse, "simple" narrative depictions of the factual course of events are hopelessly bewildering. How can anyone not deeply knowledgable of this history make sense of the endless series of machinations, all the positionings and counter-positionings, all the re-orderings that were polemical as much as substantial? One is rapidly numbed by the downward spiral of reprisals and counter-reprisals.
Israel's account of the most fervent stretch of the French Revolution succeeds in avoiding a dry litany of facts, but he does so by generating an account of the Revolution sure to warm the heart of any neoliberal.
He provides a fairly detailed account of all the political developments of the period in relation to the political or philosophical positions espoused. And, to be sure, it hangs together. It hangs together TOO well. It hangs together as a Manichean melodrama. What greater cliche for the age of revolutions, eh?
For Israel, the good guys were Condorcet, Thomas Paine and others representing the "true liberalist" core of the Revolution. The bad guys were Robespierre, Marat and company whom Israel pillories as philosophically unsophisticated demagogues and proto-fascists.
Israel's Montagnards are a far cry from the heroes of Marxist tellings, the first stirrings of a proletarian leadership. Nope, for Israel these voices of the streets were just mercenary thugs who killed off the true revolution, the one whose values (conveniently enough) look much like those of the US founding fathers-- moderate liberalism, constitutional gradualism, rule of law, winning assertions of gender and race equality. Israel portrays the French Revolution, model for the ideological complexity of all subsequent revolutions, as a simple showdown between Democratic Liberals and Nazis. Guess which side we're rooting for?
I'm not saying that Robespierre and Marat were pussycats. Obviously not (ok, they were sort of like feral, rabid, plague-infested pussycats). The point is that Israel purports to present an intellectual history. Intellectual history, to be deserving of the name, consists of the presentation of opposing views with candor and without bias. Insofar as Israel lauds his favorites and slanders their enemies, his work does not deserve its subtitle.
That said, there's much good information here for a relative neophyte like myself. I was particularly appreciative of his discussion of how what was going on in France inspired the Haitian Revolution-- such a fascinating, under-appreciated chapter in modern history!
Worse, "simple" narrative depictions of the factual course of events are hopelessly bewildering. How can anyone not deeply knowledgable of this history make sense of the endless series of machinations, all the positionings and counter-positionings, all the re-orderings that were polemical as much as substantial? One is rapidly numbed by the downward spiral of reprisals and counter-reprisals.
Israel's account of the most fervent stretch of the French Revolution succeeds in avoiding a dry litany of facts, but he does so by generating an account of the Revolution sure to warm the heart of any neoliberal.
He provides a fairly detailed account of all the political developments of the period in relation to the political or philosophical positions espoused. And, to be sure, it hangs together. It hangs together TOO well. It hangs together as a Manichean melodrama. What greater cliche for the age of revolutions, eh?
For Israel, the good guys were Condorcet, Thomas Paine and others representing the "true liberalist" core of the Revolution. The bad guys were Robespierre, Marat and company whom Israel pillories as philosophically unsophisticated demagogues and proto-fascists.
Israel's Montagnards are a far cry from the heroes of Marxist tellings, the first stirrings of a proletarian leadership. Nope, for Israel these voices of the streets were just mercenary thugs who killed off the true revolution, the one whose values (conveniently enough) look much like those of the US founding fathers-- moderate liberalism, constitutional gradualism, rule of law, winning assertions of gender and race equality. Israel portrays the French Revolution, model for the ideological complexity of all subsequent revolutions, as a simple showdown between Democratic Liberals and Nazis. Guess which side we're rooting for?
I'm not saying that Robespierre and Marat were pussycats. Obviously not (ok, they were sort of like feral, rabid, plague-infested pussycats). The point is that Israel purports to present an intellectual history. Intellectual history, to be deserving of the name, consists of the presentation of opposing views with candor and without bias. Insofar as Israel lauds his favorites and slanders their enemies, his work does not deserve its subtitle.
That said, there's much good information here for a relative neophyte like myself. I was particularly appreciative of his discussion of how what was going on in France inspired the Haitian Revolution-- such a fascinating, under-appreciated chapter in modern history!
August 27, 2016
“…The French Revolution [has] a unique centrality in modern history and relevance to the challenges of our own time” (Israel 696).
Revolutionary Ideas is a first rate, academic intellectual history of the French Revolution. It aims, and succeeds in my opinion, in arguing for an interpretation of the revolution as fundamentally motivated by radical Enlightenment philosophy. Importantly, it defines three very different ‘revolutions’ (or phases thereof). This account convincingly reinvigorates the value of the Revolution as the quote highlights above.
As a work of history this is a remarkable achievement. Jonathan Israel is an incredible writer. He has imbedded thousands of references and quotes in an accessible and smooth prose that while staunchly academic (and exceptionally well researched) invites even a motivated lay reader, such as I am, to walk away richly rewarded.
Revolutionary Ideas is an impressively deep, albeit narrowly focused, history of the intellectual demarcations and achievements of the revolutionary period, 1789-1800. This slightly dissatisfied me, as I would have loved to explore more of the germinating radical philosophical ideas, as well as those shaping the revolution. However, I acknowledge this disappointment conceding that Israel states very clearly his intention in the introduction.
Still unsure whether to read this? Then I offer the following, in conclusion, “’The Enlightenment project failed,’ it has been wrongly claimed, ‘because the radical empiricism of modern science, when applied to the history and sociology of morals, revealed no human consensus but instead an ultimate diversity of moral perspectives’ This is the postmodernist cry. But in fact, radical Enlightenment critique provided logical, convincing grounds for discarding all religious and traditional perspectives and basing the claim to universal emancipation on a systematic monism and materialism that alone matched and fitted the criteria of the critique of existing politics, moral systems, and condition” (Israel 707).
How true of radical philosophy. How true that it largely motivated the Revolution. How much value enlightenment thinking has for our own times.
Revolutionary Ideas is a first rate, academic intellectual history of the French Revolution. It aims, and succeeds in my opinion, in arguing for an interpretation of the revolution as fundamentally motivated by radical Enlightenment philosophy. Importantly, it defines three very different ‘revolutions’ (or phases thereof). This account convincingly reinvigorates the value of the Revolution as the quote highlights above.
As a work of history this is a remarkable achievement. Jonathan Israel is an incredible writer. He has imbedded thousands of references and quotes in an accessible and smooth prose that while staunchly academic (and exceptionally well researched) invites even a motivated lay reader, such as I am, to walk away richly rewarded.
Revolutionary Ideas is an impressively deep, albeit narrowly focused, history of the intellectual demarcations and achievements of the revolutionary period, 1789-1800. This slightly dissatisfied me, as I would have loved to explore more of the germinating radical philosophical ideas, as well as those shaping the revolution. However, I acknowledge this disappointment conceding that Israel states very clearly his intention in the introduction.
Still unsure whether to read this? Then I offer the following, in conclusion, “’The Enlightenment project failed,’ it has been wrongly claimed, ‘because the radical empiricism of modern science, when applied to the history and sociology of morals, revealed no human consensus but instead an ultimate diversity of moral perspectives’ This is the postmodernist cry. But in fact, radical Enlightenment critique provided logical, convincing grounds for discarding all religious and traditional perspectives and basing the claim to universal emancipation on a systematic monism and materialism that alone matched and fitted the criteria of the critique of existing politics, moral systems, and condition” (Israel 707).
How true of radical philosophy. How true that it largely motivated the Revolution. How much value enlightenment thinking has for our own times.
February 7, 2016
The French Revolution is one of the most important historical moments in Western history if not world history. It was the first truly democratic revolution and bequeathed the modern tenets of democratic republicanism. Yet much of the accomplishments of the French Revolution have been lost on modern historians as they have looked to social and economic factors to explain why events turned out the way it did. Enter Mr. Israel, a historian of the Enlightenment era, to remind people that while economic and social factors may explain what caused Revolution, the reason why things turned out the way it did was because of the Enlightenment. Through this exhaustive look at the ideological battles between Lafayette's moderate constitutional monarchists, Brissotin's democratic republicans, and Robespierre's absolutist populism, Mr. Israel makes the case that the French Revolution was the result of the Radical Enlightenment. Mr. Israel also shows that Robespierre's Reign of Terror was not the culmination of the Revolution and the Enlightenment, but rather a betrayal of everything it stood for. As I said before, it is exhaustive and I would not recommend this book to anyone who does not already have a good working knowledge of the major events and key players and groups from this period. It would also help if you knew a little French as the author frequently uses quotes in French frequently. Also the author's attention to the minutiae can bog the narrative down a lot. However, this is a good book that connects the Revolution and its ideals with the ideals of the Enlightenment. I would recommend this book to serious history buffs specializing in the French Revolution.
June 17, 2020
Really not a great book. It doesn't read particularly exciting even though it's written about a momentous occasion in history. Also, the extreme bias for ideas and against materialism is extremely unconvincing, and he passed over the immense suffering of the general populace in a matter of sentences. This is a great example of elite history that misleads the public in their views.
March 12, 2020
You must admit that the genesis of a great man depends on the long series of complex influences which has produced the race in which he appears, and the social state into which that race has slowly grown. ... Before he can remake his society, his society must make him.
— Herbert Spencer, The Study of Sociology
لذلك الغرب اول من حارب العبودية في مجتمعه من بد كل الحضارات، وطالب بإنهاء العادة في حركات Abolitionist والبعض منها أدت الى حرب أهلية كما كان الحال في الولايات المتحدة، ونجد التوسع الاستعماري الأوروبي في العالم الإسلامي مابين القرنين الثامن عشر والعشرين، أدى إلى محاربة هذه الطقوس التي لم يكن يراها المسلمون مشكلة كما يراها الغربي، وذلك يعيدنا إلى الإدراك والوعي مثل ما هو مذكور في الاقتباس أعلاه من أعظم البشر في تاريخ البشرية، لا في القرن التاسع عشر فحسب، وإنما البشرية كاملة! مازالت العبودية قائمة في النيجر (٩٩٪ مسلمون) و موريتانيا (٩٩٪ مسلمون) و مالي (٩٣٪ مسلمون) والكثير غيرها، ولا ننسى بأنه الضغط الغربي الذي حرر واعتق العبيد حتى في دول لم تستعمرها مثل الدولة السعودية الثالثة في ١٩٦٢، ومنعت فيها العبودية تحت تهديد سحب خبرات استكشاف، وتنقيب، وإنتاج النفط وعدم شراءه. وكذلك هو الوعي المجتمعي والتفجر لإدراكي الذي يجعل الأسود في الولايات المتحدة يشكك في الديانة المسيحية في ان، وعلاقته ومكانته في المجتمع ذو الغالبية البيضاء المبني على الأفكار الأوروبية في ان اخر، وهذا السجال إلى يومنا هذا، حتى بعد انتخب "عبد" مرتين منذ ٢٠٠٨-٢٠١٦ إلى أقوى منصب سياسي في الكوكب في عالمنا المعاصر. وبلا شك! فأن غياب هذا الإدراك والوعي عند العالم الإسلامي، هو مايجعل مئات الملايين من السلمون السود في أفريقيا لا يشككون في صحة الدين المحمدي، بالعكس! فإن أغلب العبيد في موريتانيا، يرون بأن الخروج عن طاعة السيد، هو ابتعاد وحرمان من دخول الجنة إلى يومنا هذا! وهذا ليس بسبب غباء الفرد، وإنما يرجعنا الى الاقتباس أعلاه من هربرت سبنسر، وهو رد ينتقد فيها "نظرية الرجل العظيم" لتوماس كارليل، ولكن لسبب ما قمت بربطها مع هذا الأمر بشكل خاص. لذلك لا أستطيع ايجاد طريقة لنقد الغرب! لان باستطاعتنا انتقاد فعل مؤقت، له عواقب معينة، ونتائج مدروسة، وما يترتب على ذلك. لكن حتى في الانتقاد، لا يسعك فعل ذلك، لانهم هم يقومون بذلك بطريقة أفضل، وبشفافية اكبر، وبصراحة اعلى، عند تحكيم أنفسهم، فما حديثك سوى عاطفة مقيتة تحاول اطالة عمرها الافتراضي، بينما هم يتراجعون ويشككون بفاعلية الفعل عن وجه حق، فيجردون أنفسهم من العاطفة المقيتة، ويتسلحون بالعاطفة المفيدة، التي تتصل بالواقع الأليم، مع ادراك مايلزمه علينا من أفعال، وما يترتب على تلك الأفعال من عواقب حقيقية ملموسة. لذلك هم وحدهم الذي يبادرون، ومنذ قرون، بتحسين حال الكوكب، والبشرية ككل، فأنك تجد سيدات من شمال أوروبا، يذهبن إلى كينيا لمحاربة اضطهاد تجاه النساء من قبل صيادي السمك، الذي لا يعطون السمك للنساء سوى بمقابل مردود جنسي من قبلهم، فماذا فعلوا؟ قاموا بتعليم النساء كيفية صيد السمك، لانه حرم عليهم تعلم هذه المهنة المحصورة في الرجال، واشتروا لهم قوارب ليطبقوا ما تعلموه، وبذلك حررن أنفسهن بالاستقلال الذاتي عن من كان يحتكر مهنة ذات نتاج، المراد منه الأكل، وبذلك يكن استطعن الاعتماد على أنفسهن، وبطريقة غير مباشرة ومباشرة في ان واحد، أصبحت القوة التي كان يتسلط فيها الصياد الذكر ليس لها اثر ملموس، مع تمسكه بالفكر الذي وجد عليه نفسه وآبائه وأجداده، كحال الذي يقول لك عندي، وأنت بأمس الحاجة لما عنده، ثم تصون نفسك بما عنده، لانك قادر على تخطي عتبة الطلب، عن طريق الإنتاج الذاتي! وذلك يرجعنا للمثل الصيني منذ آلاف السنين، "لا تعطيني سمكة، وإنما علمني كيف اصطاد السمكة،" وفِي هذه الحال بالذات، كان المثل ينطبق حرفيًا عليهم. الاستقلال هو الموجه الأكبر لعجلة المساواة.
فبذلك، اقر، وبأن بعد عقد من القراءة اليومية والاطلاع اليومي، والتجارب المبنية على السفر، والعيش فيما بينهم لأكثر من ست سنوات، لا يحل للمسلم نقد الغرب ولا حتى انتقاد الغرب عاطفيا بسبب مشاعر لحظية. على قولة الشعر الانجليزي صاحب meme المعلقات؛
“Keep Calm, it’s the west, motherfucker.”
أعذرني فالصفاء الذهني ٢٠٠٪ مما يولد قدرة عجيبة على استنباط الأفكار من المصرف المعرفي التراكمي. زد على ما قمت بذكره أعلاه بالاتي؛ الكثير من قول النبي محمد، صاحب اتباع يشكلون ٢٥٪ من عدد سكان الكوكب اليوم، هو جميل ومؤثر وجليل. فوحده الجاهل من لا يستطيع تقدير "المسلم من سلم الناس من لسانه ويده." او "خيركم للناس أنفعكم الناس." المصيبة هي في الإدراك الغائب بسبب إهمال معرفة تاريخ الأفكار، وذلك لا يكون الا بغياب القراءة والاطلاع. لان الحديث الأول غير موجود، وإنما لفظه عن عبدالله بن عمرو بن العاص عن محمد النبي، هو "المسلم من سلم المسلمون من لسانه ويده،" فلا دخل للخمسة والسبعين بالمئة من سكان الأرض بالحديث، لانه وبكل بساطة، لا يشملهم. وكيف يشملهم؟ والمشمولين به يقطعون بعضهم البعض منذ منتصف القرن السابع الميلادي! أما الحديث الأخر، فهو مجرد من أية أصالة فكرية. فالكثير من البشر ذكروا ذلك وتناوله بعد النبي محمد بآلاف السنين وقبله بآلاف السنين ايضا، وعكس النبي محمد، هم لا يدعون النبوة، ولا يدعون بأنهم قد حسموا الأول والآخر، ولا يدعون بأنهم وصلوا للغاية! وإنما يقولون هذا ماوصلت اليه أنا، من معطيات ماتم فرزه أمام عيني المجردة. ولكن، قد اثبتت البشرية حبها كل ماهو مغطى بغطاء أسطوري او قدسي، ومن الصعب التفرقة بين الاثنين، لاسيما وأنهم يجمعهم تقارب وتشابه، لعل أبرزه هو الترديد المتواصل عبر العصور والأزمنة، والتوارث من جيل إلى آخر. فأننا نستطيع سرد كل ما هو مقدس اليوم، ولكن اذا كان الإطار النظري للمسالة يحدث في سيارة uber من قبل سائق المركبة، فلن يغطيها أية هوس قدسي، لان رحلة التاكسي وببساطة تستغرق دقائق معدودة، وأيضا لدينا هوس بمن يولد من ام عذراء لم يمسسها بشر (لا رجل، لعل الشذوذ النسوي لا بأس به) ويتحدث لكائنات تطير جبارة، يجعل من ذلك القول.....مختلف وذو نكهة عظيمة.
ايضآ، أنا ارى بأنه لهذه النظرية ان تقوم، يجب ان تبنى على الآتي؛ يجب أن تكون الحاجة إليهم كبيرة حتى تظهر هذه السمات ، مما يسمح لهم بالقيادة. ولكني وبشدة اشكك في الآتي؛ بأن البعض يولد، و كل زعيم عظيم يمتلك بالفعل سمات معينة تمكنه من النهوض والقيادة ، على غريزة طبيعية فيه! ولعلي مخطئ في شكي، لانه علي الاطلاع على مقاربة الأمر من منظور أحيائي تطوري في جميع مسالكه، خصوصًا النفسية. لان العبقرية ليست نتيجة تضاعف للمواهب. على سبيل المثال؛ كم عدد الكتائب العسكرية التي تعادل نابليون؟ كم عدد الشعراء الصغار الذين سيعطوننا شكسبير؟ كم عدد العلماء الذين سيقومون بعمل آينشتاين؟ التساؤلات كثيرة! ولكن على الأقل، أوضحها الان، هو الاتصال المجتمعي مع الفرد كما قال هربرت سبنسر، والذي يرجعنا لما ذكرت عند مقارنة الغرب مع العالم الإسلامي، فالوحي المتداول شي، والإدراك شي.
والإدراك وحده من يسحق مسالة الغريزة المتوارثة في العظماء! فانه يشكك أحقية الملك المتوارث والطبقة الأرستقراطية في المجتمعات الإقطاعية، مما ادى إلى وعي بالحاجة إلى التغير، مع ما صاحبه من تفجر إدراكي في الآراء والنظريات والأقاويل والأساليب و التجارب. فكر في الثورة الفرنسية، حرب الاستقلال الأمريكية و الثورة الروسية الخ.
If anything is humanly certain it is that the great man's society, properly so called, does not make him before he can remake it ... The mutations of societies, then, from generation to generation, are in the main due directly or indirectly to the acts or the examples of individuals whose genius was so adapted to the receptivities of the moment, or whose accidental position of authority was so critical that they became ferments, initiators of movements, setters of precedent or fashion, centers of corruption, or destroyers of other persons, whose gifts, had they had free play, would have led society in another direction.
William James, in his 1880 lecture "Great Men, Great Thoughts, and the Environment,” published in the Atlantic Monthly.
ركز في القسم الأخير!!!!!!! الذي يبدأ عند المدمرين للآخرين، ممن كانت مواهبهم، لو تسنت لهم الفرصة، لكانوا قادوا المجتمع في اتجاه اخر! هذا يجعلك تتفكر في أهمية ديموقراطية الأفكار، التي ستولد ديموقراطية المؤسسات على نطاق مجتمعي، مما يولد قفزة نوعية في الإدراك، من ناحية المتنفس الفكري للمواهب.
ومن ثم، لمن ينقم على هذا مسالة فوضى الديموقراطية، فنقول له بأنها عمل مستمر ويمر بمراحل، مما يجعله يتواكب مع كل العوامل، ان كانت بيئية او زمنية. فضلًا عن تلك التي تقول وبكل ثقة دون تقديم الأدلة، بانها صالحة لكل زمان ومكان، دون الأخذ بعين الاعتبار هذه المعطيات الضخمة.
— Herbert Spencer, The Study of Sociology
لذلك الغرب اول من حارب العبودية في مجتمعه من بد كل الحضارات، وطالب بإنهاء العادة في حركات Abolitionist والبعض منها أدت الى حرب أهلية كما كان الحال في الولايات المتحدة، ونجد التوسع الاستعماري الأوروبي في العالم الإسلامي مابين القرنين الثامن عشر والعشرين، أدى إلى محاربة هذه الطقوس التي لم يكن يراها المسلمون مشكلة كما يراها الغربي، وذلك يعيدنا إلى الإدراك والوعي مثل ما هو مذكور في الاقتباس أعلاه من أعظم البشر في تاريخ البشرية، لا في القرن التاسع عشر فحسب، وإنما البشرية كاملة! مازالت العبودية قائمة في النيجر (٩٩٪ مسلمون) و موريتانيا (٩٩٪ مسلمون) و مالي (٩٣٪ مسلمون) والكثير غيرها، ولا ننسى بأنه الضغط الغربي الذي حرر واعتق العبيد حتى في دول لم تستعمرها مثل الدولة السعودية الثالثة في ١٩٦٢، ومنعت فيها العبودية تحت تهديد سحب خبرات استكشاف، وتنقيب، وإنتاج النفط وعدم شراءه. وكذلك هو الوعي المجتمعي والتفجر لإدراكي الذي يجعل الأسود في الولايات المتحدة يشكك في الديانة المسيحية في ان، وعلاقته ومكانته في المجتمع ذو الغالبية البيضاء المبني على الأفكار الأوروبية في ان اخر، وهذا السجال إلى يومنا هذا، حتى بعد انتخب "عبد" مرتين منذ ٢٠٠٨-٢٠١٦ إلى أقوى منصب سياسي في الكوكب في عالمنا المعاصر. وبلا شك! فأن غياب هذا الإدراك والوعي عند العالم الإسلامي، هو مايجعل مئات الملايين من السلمون السود في أفريقيا لا يشككون في صحة الدين المحمدي، بالعكس! فإن أغلب العبيد في موريتانيا، يرون بأن الخروج عن طاعة السيد، هو ابتعاد وحرمان من دخول الجنة إلى يومنا هذا! وهذا ليس بسبب غباء الفرد، وإنما يرجعنا الى الاقتباس أعلاه من هربرت سبنسر، وهو رد ينتقد فيها "نظرية الرجل العظيم" لتوماس كارليل، ولكن لسبب ما قمت بربطها مع هذا الأمر بشكل خاص. لذلك لا أستطيع ايجاد طريقة لنقد الغرب! لان باستطاعتنا انتقاد فعل مؤقت، له عواقب معينة، ونتائج مدروسة، وما يترتب على ذلك. لكن حتى في الانتقاد، لا يسعك فعل ذلك، لانهم هم يقومون بذلك بطريقة أفضل، وبشفافية اكبر، وبصراحة اعلى، عند تحكيم أنفسهم، فما حديثك سوى عاطفة مقيتة تحاول اطالة عمرها الافتراضي، بينما هم يتراجعون ويشككون بفاعلية الفعل عن وجه حق، فيجردون أنفسهم من العاطفة المقيتة، ويتسلحون بالعاطفة المفيدة، التي تتصل بالواقع الأليم، مع ادراك مايلزمه علينا من أفعال، وما يترتب على تلك الأفعال من عواقب حقيقية ملموسة. لذلك هم وحدهم الذي يبادرون، ومنذ قرون، بتحسين حال الكوكب، والبشرية ككل، فأنك تجد سيدات من شمال أوروبا، يذهبن إلى كينيا لمحاربة اضطهاد تجاه النساء من قبل صيادي السمك، الذي لا يعطون السمك للنساء سوى بمقابل مردود جنسي من قبلهم، فماذا فعلوا؟ قاموا بتعليم النساء كيفية صيد السمك، لانه حرم عليهم تعلم هذه المهنة المحصورة في الرجال، واشتروا لهم قوارب ليطبقوا ما تعلموه، وبذلك حررن أنفسهن بالاستقلال الذاتي عن من كان يحتكر مهنة ذات نتاج، المراد منه الأكل، وبذلك يكن استطعن الاعتماد على أنفسهن، وبطريقة غير مباشرة ومباشرة في ان واحد، أصبحت القوة التي كان يتسلط فيها الصياد الذكر ليس لها اثر ملموس، مع تمسكه بالفكر الذي وجد عليه نفسه وآبائه وأجداده، كحال الذي يقول لك عندي، وأنت بأمس الحاجة لما عنده، ثم تصون نفسك بما عنده، لانك قادر على تخطي عتبة الطلب، عن طريق الإنتاج الذاتي! وذلك يرجعنا للمثل الصيني منذ آلاف السنين، "لا تعطيني سمكة، وإنما علمني كيف اصطاد السمكة،" وفِي هذه الحال بالذات، كان المثل ينطبق حرفيًا عليهم. الاستقلال هو الموجه الأكبر لعجلة المساواة.
فبذلك، اقر، وبأن بعد عقد من القراءة اليومية والاطلاع اليومي، والتجارب المبنية على السفر، والعيش فيما بينهم لأكثر من ست سنوات، لا يحل للمسلم نقد الغرب ولا حتى انتقاد الغرب عاطفيا بسبب مشاعر لحظية. على قولة الشعر الانجليزي صاحب meme المعلقات؛
“Keep Calm, it’s the west, motherfucker.”
أعذرني فالصفاء الذهني ٢٠٠٪ مما يولد قدرة عجيبة على استنباط الأفكار من المصرف المعرفي التراكمي. زد على ما قمت بذكره أعلاه بالاتي؛ الكثير من قول النبي محمد، صاحب اتباع يشكلون ٢٥٪ من عدد سكان الكوكب اليوم، هو جميل ومؤثر وجليل. فوحده الجاهل من لا يستطيع تقدير "المسلم من سلم الناس من لسانه ويده." او "خيركم للناس أنفعكم الناس." المصيبة هي في الإدراك الغائب بسبب إهمال معرفة تاريخ الأفكار، وذلك لا يكون الا بغياب القراءة والاطلاع. لان الحديث الأول غير موجود، وإنما لفظه عن عبدالله بن عمرو بن العاص عن محمد النبي، هو "المسلم من سلم المسلمون من لسانه ويده،" فلا دخل للخمسة والسبعين بالمئة من سكان الأرض بالحديث، لانه وبكل بساطة، لا يشملهم. وكيف يشملهم؟ والمشمولين به يقطعون بعضهم البعض منذ منتصف القرن السابع الميلادي! أما الحديث الأخر، فهو مجرد من أية أصالة فكرية. فالكثير من البشر ذكروا ذلك وتناوله بعد النبي محمد بآلاف السنين وقبله بآلاف السنين ايضا، وعكس النبي محمد، هم لا يدعون النبوة، ولا يدعون بأنهم قد حسموا الأول والآخر، ولا يدعون بأنهم وصلوا للغاية! وإنما يقولون هذا ماوصلت اليه أنا، من معطيات ماتم فرزه أمام عيني المجردة. ولكن، قد اثبتت البشرية حبها كل ماهو مغطى بغطاء أسطوري او قدسي، ومن الصعب التفرقة بين الاثنين، لاسيما وأنهم يجمعهم تقارب وتشابه، لعل أبرزه هو الترديد المتواصل عبر العصور والأزمنة، والتوارث من جيل إلى آخر. فأننا نستطيع سرد كل ما هو مقدس اليوم، ولكن اذا كان الإطار النظري للمسالة يحدث في سيارة uber من قبل سائق المركبة، فلن يغطيها أية هوس قدسي، لان رحلة التاكسي وببساطة تستغرق دقائق معدودة، وأيضا لدينا هوس بمن يولد من ام عذراء لم يمسسها بشر (لا رجل، لعل الشذوذ النسوي لا بأس به) ويتحدث لكائنات تطير جبارة، يجعل من ذلك القول.....مختلف وذو نكهة عظيمة.
ايضآ، أنا ارى بأنه لهذه النظرية ان تقوم، يجب ان تبنى على الآتي؛ يجب أن تكون الحاجة إليهم كبيرة حتى تظهر هذه السمات ، مما يسمح لهم بالقيادة. ولكني وبشدة اشكك في الآتي؛ بأن البعض يولد، و كل زعيم عظيم يمتلك بالفعل سمات معينة تمكنه من النهوض والقيادة ، على غريزة طبيعية فيه! ولعلي مخطئ في شكي، لانه علي الاطلاع على مقاربة الأمر من منظور أحيائي تطوري في جميع مسالكه، خصوصًا النفسية. لان العبقرية ليست نتيجة تضاعف للمواهب. على سبيل المثال؛ كم عدد الكتائب العسكرية التي تعادل نابليون؟ كم عدد الشعراء الصغار الذين سيعطوننا شكسبير؟ كم عدد العلماء الذين سيقومون بعمل آينشتاين؟ التساؤلات كثيرة! ولكن على الأقل، أوضحها الان، هو الاتصال المجتمعي مع الفرد كما قال هربرت سبنسر، والذي يرجعنا لما ذكرت عند مقارنة الغرب مع العالم الإسلامي، فالوحي المتداول شي، والإدراك شي.
والإدراك وحده من يسحق مسالة الغريزة المتوارثة في العظماء! فانه يشكك أحقية الملك المتوارث والطبقة الأرستقراطية في المجتمعات الإقطاعية، مما ادى إلى وعي بالحاجة إلى التغير، مع ما صاحبه من تفجر إدراكي في الآراء والنظريات والأقاويل والأساليب و التجارب. فكر في الثورة الفرنسية، حرب الاستقلال الأمريكية و الثورة الروسية الخ.
If anything is humanly certain it is that the great man's society, properly so called, does not make him before he can remake it ... The mutations of societies, then, from generation to generation, are in the main due directly or indirectly to the acts or the examples of individuals whose genius was so adapted to the receptivities of the moment, or whose accidental position of authority was so critical that they became ferments, initiators of movements, setters of precedent or fashion, centers of corruption, or destroyers of other persons, whose gifts, had they had free play, would have led society in another direction.
William James, in his 1880 lecture "Great Men, Great Thoughts, and the Environment,” published in the Atlantic Monthly.
ركز في القسم الأخير!!!!!!! الذي يبدأ عند المدمرين للآخرين، ممن كانت مواهبهم، لو تسنت لهم الفرصة، لكانوا قادوا المجتمع في اتجاه اخر! هذا يجعلك تتفكر في أهمية ديموقراطية الأفكار، التي ستولد ديموقراطية المؤسسات على نطاق مجتمعي، مما يولد قفزة نوعية في الإدراك، من ناحية المتنفس الفكري للمواهب.
ومن ثم، لمن ينقم على هذا مسالة فوضى الديموقراطية، فنقول له بأنها عمل مستمر ويمر بمراحل، مما يجعله يتواكب مع كل العوامل، ان كانت بيئية او زمنية. فضلًا عن تلك التي تقول وبكل ثقة دون تقديم الأدلة، بانها صالحة لكل زمان ومكان، دون الأخذ بعين الاعتبار هذه المعطيات الضخمة.
October 15, 2024
Revolutionary Ideas: An Élitiste Histoire of the French Revolution
2 Stars, I debated on giving it 3
If you think my use of French is pretentious you may want to skip out on this one. Most of the time important concepts or quotes, as in full sentences, stay in their native French. (Except when we are not in France, then you'll have the pleasure of seeing German, Italian and Dutch) But not only do important things stay in their native tongue, some normal words like philosophy are replaced by philosophie, which seems very *élitiste*.
*Mais* this is not the reason why I have titled it an 'Elitist History'.
Jonathan Israel argues in his book that the primary cause was the radical enlightenment as well as philosophy and that the primary drive were the Girondins. The book rejects Marxian Class warfare or Social factors as the primary cause.
This I think is ridiculous, the Revolution was built off of the people and their gripes with the Ancien Régime. The storming of the Bastille wasn't caused by some guy reading the Social Contract to a crowd, but the people being tired everything being horrible. Yes politicians were influenced heavily by philosophy, but they are not the cause, they are people trying to give shape to the class war.
He also argues that Robespierre is the antithesis to the Republic and the backbone of modern fascism. Often argued with propaganda straight out of '93/'94.
Most parts involving Robespierre are utterly unreadable.
Something else that has annoyed me was the very selective mention of the gripes of the common people.
The problems that the common folk faced were mentioned rarely against the monarchy , so the radical enlightenment thesis doesn't get overshadowed, never mentioned against the Girondins, to drive the narrative of them being pure angels of philosophy and used frequently against Robespierre because less philosophy=more bad and people feel not good.
Concretely I remember the author telling us about why the Girondins were in favour of the war against the monarchies of Europe, never mentioning that thousands of Frenchmen died for their oh so philosophical (and remember, therefore good) blunder.
There was the criticism of the Robespierreists being very polarising in the Assembly, which is true, but you should probably be mentioning that everyone else (even the oh so perfect Girondins) was doing that and that that is bad too.
This book doesn't have an air of elitism, it reeks of elitism. Constant sayings of philosophy this, philosophy that, like the revolution was made in the Assembly and not in the streets of France.
I could write a lot more but these annoyed me the most.
There is interesting non-Robespierre related stuff, but again things involving him are unreadable.
2 Stars, I debated on giving it 3
If you think my use of French is pretentious you may want to skip out on this one. Most of the time important concepts or quotes, as in full sentences, stay in their native French. (Except when we are not in France, then you'll have the pleasure of seeing German, Italian and Dutch) But not only do important things stay in their native tongue, some normal words like philosophy are replaced by philosophie, which seems very *élitiste*.
*Mais* this is not the reason why I have titled it an 'Elitist History'.
Jonathan Israel argues in his book that the primary cause was the radical enlightenment as well as philosophy and that the primary drive were the Girondins. The book rejects Marxian Class warfare or Social factors as the primary cause.
This I think is ridiculous, the Revolution was built off of the people and their gripes with the Ancien Régime. The storming of the Bastille wasn't caused by some guy reading the Social Contract to a crowd, but the people being tired everything being horrible. Yes politicians were influenced heavily by philosophy, but they are not the cause, they are people trying to give shape to the class war.
He also argues that Robespierre is the antithesis to the Republic and the backbone of modern fascism. Often argued with propaganda straight out of '93/'94.
Most parts involving Robespierre are utterly unreadable.
Something else that has annoyed me was the very selective mention of the gripes of the common people.
The problems that the common folk faced were mentioned rarely against the monarchy , so the radical enlightenment thesis doesn't get overshadowed, never mentioned against the Girondins, to drive the narrative of them being pure angels of philosophy and used frequently against Robespierre because less philosophy=more bad and people feel not good.
Concretely I remember the author telling us about why the Girondins were in favour of the war against the monarchies of Europe, never mentioning that thousands of Frenchmen died for their oh so philosophical (and remember, therefore good) blunder.
There was the criticism of the Robespierreists being very polarising in the Assembly, which is true, but you should probably be mentioning that everyone else (even the oh so perfect Girondins) was doing that and that that is bad too.
This book doesn't have an air of elitism, it reeks of elitism. Constant sayings of philosophy this, philosophy that, like the revolution was made in the Assembly and not in the streets of France.
I could write a lot more but these annoyed me the most.
There is interesting non-Robespierre related stuff, but again things involving him are unreadable.
February 1, 2019
This is the best book I have read about the French Revolution. Unlike most histories of that revolution which in the spirit of our times downplay the effect of intellectual history to cause or even substantively influence historical events, this history stressed the centrality of the Radical Enlightenment defined by Professor Israel's larger history of Radical Enlightenment against reactions against that intellectual history on the social, economic, and other factors involved in the French Revolution. Ideas, Professor Israel adroitly argues, did cause that Revolution but he differentiates Enlightenment from Revolutionary ideologies that gave Enlightenment a bad name.
He does write about social economic factors but stresses the human beings who led the radical wing of the revolution. He stresses their thinking. He shows how many of those leaders violated the Radical Enlightenment thinking that stemmed from Spinoza, who was according to Professor Israel's full study of the Radical Enlightenment, the primary intellectual leader of that Enlightenment.
I think he differentiates the Radical Enlightenment from the radical leaders of the French Revolution who lost touch with the Radical Enlightenment. This is history, intellectual history certainly, but still history. He considers ideas as causal in the same sense so-called material causes are history.
People like the authoritarian Rousseau are not, in his view, fair representatives of the Radical Enlightenment but counter Enlightenment opponents of Enlightenment. I am not an agile reader but Israel is a subtle writer. He has rhetorical flare and he exploits that in his well made characterizations of the leaders of the Revolution. What thinking human beings got right and got wrong defined the French Revolution. That is how ideas were causal.
As the jacket blurb notes the French Revolution was three revolutions lead by constitutional monarchists, democratic republicans, and populist authoritarians. He shows how Radical Enlightenment emancipatory and democratic ideals fell to the Terror that completely betrayed the Enlightenment. He defends Enlightenment against the radical terrorist inversion.
He does write about social economic factors but stresses the human beings who led the radical wing of the revolution. He stresses their thinking. He shows how many of those leaders violated the Radical Enlightenment thinking that stemmed from Spinoza, who was according to Professor Israel's full study of the Radical Enlightenment, the primary intellectual leader of that Enlightenment.
I think he differentiates the Radical Enlightenment from the radical leaders of the French Revolution who lost touch with the Radical Enlightenment. This is history, intellectual history certainly, but still history. He considers ideas as causal in the same sense so-called material causes are history.
People like the authoritarian Rousseau are not, in his view, fair representatives of the Radical Enlightenment but counter Enlightenment opponents of Enlightenment. I am not an agile reader but Israel is a subtle writer. He has rhetorical flare and he exploits that in his well made characterizations of the leaders of the Revolution. What thinking human beings got right and got wrong defined the French Revolution. That is how ideas were causal.
As the jacket blurb notes the French Revolution was three revolutions lead by constitutional monarchists, democratic republicans, and populist authoritarians. He shows how Radical Enlightenment emancipatory and democratic ideals fell to the Terror that completely betrayed the Enlightenment. He defends Enlightenment against the radical terrorist inversion.
February 24, 2021
A detailed political history of the French revolution of 1789-99 as seen from the main protagonists at the national (i.e. Paris) level. Most chapters as well as the main story (800 pages) are in strict chronological order. The author, Jonathan Israel, doesn't step outside the chronology by discussing topics interesting to scholars, but distraction to most readers e.g. what later historians have thought about the actors and actions. This makes the narrative feel like a constant flow of events, dilemmas, writings and intrigues ending abruptly with Napoleon's coup in 1799.
Jonathan Israel is mostly concerned with the ideology and the political ideas of the most influential politicians and activists. He takes the writings, decisions and speeches at face value. He doesn't assume that the ideology of the politicians are just power struggles masquerading as something else, like many generations of marxist inspired historians have always tended to do. As a political history, he is also not devoting much space for economic or military issues, except when these are unavoidable explanations for the decisions.
This feels both like a very modern and a very traditional history: It's traditional by being focused on the ideas and decisions of the dozens people who tried to run (or ruin) the country. There's no abstract abstruse talk of "social structures" or "classes". Just men (apart from a few women) trying to influence day-to-day politics. It's modern the way that it discard most interpretations of the French revolution preferred by marxists, social historians and new cultural historians. As Jonathan Israel notes in the introduction, the first half century after the revolution, the most favoured explanations of the revolution, both for its supporters and enemies, was that the ideas of enlightenment philosophers had tremendous importance in shaping the decisions. The emphasis on enlightenment philosophy fell out of fashion a century ago when marxists tried to force an orthodox class struggle scheme upon the history. So Jonathan Israel's project seems to be the revival of the view that enlightenment philosophy was the main ingredient for the revolution.
Jonathan Israel is mostly concerned with the ideology and the political ideas of the most influential politicians and activists. He takes the writings, decisions and speeches at face value. He doesn't assume that the ideology of the politicians are just power struggles masquerading as something else, like many generations of marxist inspired historians have always tended to do. As a political history, he is also not devoting much space for economic or military issues, except when these are unavoidable explanations for the decisions.
This feels both like a very modern and a very traditional history: It's traditional by being focused on the ideas and decisions of the dozens people who tried to run (or ruin) the country. There's no abstract abstruse talk of "social structures" or "classes". Just men (apart from a few women) trying to influence day-to-day politics. It's modern the way that it discard most interpretations of the French revolution preferred by marxists, social historians and new cultural historians. As Jonathan Israel notes in the introduction, the first half century after the revolution, the most favoured explanations of the revolution, both for its supporters and enemies, was that the ideas of enlightenment philosophers had tremendous importance in shaping the decisions. The emphasis on enlightenment philosophy fell out of fashion a century ago when marxists tried to force an orthodox class struggle scheme upon the history. So Jonathan Israel's project seems to be the revival of the view that enlightenment philosophy was the main ingredient for the revolution.
May 12, 2016
The French Revolution is one of the most important if not the most important event in the modern history. It was caused by many factor, but the true motor that was driving it forward was radical enlightenment. Radical enlightenment providing revolution with the philosophical underpinning is the main thesis of this book.
This book is a true masterpiece. Detailed and academic yet so approachable and thrilling. Reading how the story of revolution unfolded was very enjoyable. All the concepts we take for granted today were so hard fought and learned. All these big questions like what does it really mean to be equal? Freedom of press. Universal suffrage. Abolishment of slavery were all on the table of the revolutionaries. My favourite part was reading about the period of the Terror (1793-1794). So much to learn from that. When people tried to protect freedom by stripping other of it. Protect equality by establishing dictatorship. If you are afraid then you are guilty. . . Anyway, highly recommended to anyone interested in this period of human history.
This book is a true masterpiece. Detailed and academic yet so approachable and thrilling. Reading how the story of revolution unfolded was very enjoyable. All the concepts we take for granted today were so hard fought and learned. All these big questions like what does it really mean to be equal? Freedom of press. Universal suffrage. Abolishment of slavery were all on the table of the revolutionaries. My favourite part was reading about the period of the Terror (1793-1794). So much to learn from that. When people tried to protect freedom by stripping other of it. Protect equality by establishing dictatorship. If you are afraid then you are guilty. . . Anyway, highly recommended to anyone interested in this period of human history.
December 6, 2021
An essential survey of political literature in the Revolutionary Era, with a nearly comprehensive overview of pamphlets and newspapers of the period. Israel's insistence on looking for the "real revolution" is a bit of a bother, arguing that The Terror was not truly a part of the liberal democratic enlightenment because it censored the press and pushed women to the margins on top of its obvious other excesses.
As a counter to the "violence is inherent in the system" case in Schama's "Citizens", I think there is much to be said in Israel's defence. However, the collaboration, acquiescence and eventual cluelessness of his preferred Brissot-camp was essential to the rise of Robespierre.
There are, as in every book on the French Revolution, strong echoes of contemporary politics, from Marat's calling for a strong man to toss out those who offend the people, to an elite argument that education will solve all the problems of France, to a movement that presents the People as having the only true course of action (while always defining the People in a quite narrow sense.)
As a counter to the "violence is inherent in the system" case in Schama's "Citizens", I think there is much to be said in Israel's defence. However, the collaboration, acquiescence and eventual cluelessness of his preferred Brissot-camp was essential to the rise of Robespierre.
There are, as in every book on the French Revolution, strong echoes of contemporary politics, from Marat's calling for a strong man to toss out those who offend the people, to an elite argument that education will solve all the problems of France, to a movement that presents the People as having the only true course of action (while always defining the People in a quite narrow sense.)
February 3, 2024
3.5. An astonishingly comprehensive political history of the Revolution. I've read numerous books on the subject, and none come close to this level of detail. Israel's mastery of the political culture and literature of the age is truly staggering. As others have written, this is a top-down, Paris-centric approach, with a clear bias (though, the Revolution being the founding event of the modern era, one unavoidably is forced to take a side). But whether you agree or not that the Brissotins/Girondins were the true representatives of the Revolution and the Robespierristes its corrupters, this book has much to teach you.
I will add that I often found Revolutionary Ideas, 700+ pages long, rather difficult to get through. Its paragraphs are quite lengthy, and there are many chapters which do not have a single section break (while others, strangely, have several). Israel also insists on needlessly keeping many phrases in the original French. Most of this time this is not too much of a bother--though after reading "la philosophie" 500 times, it began to grate on me--sometimes he would include lengthier quotations in French with no translation. For those with a passable understanding of the language, you can figure out what is being said, but it is a disservice to the reader. The number of typos also seemed to increase as the work went along--it is as if even the editors began to run out of steam.
Overall, this work is a hugely impressive achievement--though those seeking for a more readable, digestible popular history of the Revolution that won't take a month to get through should probably look elsewhere.
I will add that I often found Revolutionary Ideas, 700+ pages long, rather difficult to get through. Its paragraphs are quite lengthy, and there are many chapters which do not have a single section break (while others, strangely, have several). Israel also insists on needlessly keeping many phrases in the original French. Most of this time this is not too much of a bother--though after reading "la philosophie" 500 times, it began to grate on me--sometimes he would include lengthier quotations in French with no translation. For those with a passable understanding of the language, you can figure out what is being said, but it is a disservice to the reader. The number of typos also seemed to increase as the work went along--it is as if even the editors began to run out of steam.
Overall, this work is a hugely impressive achievement--though those seeking for a more readable, digestible popular history of the Revolution that won't take a month to get through should probably look elsewhere.
uni
March 8, 2024reading list - political and social history
April 28, 2025
Quite an idealistic view in to the revolution, he skips over key factors in order to prove his point, however it’s written very well
July 12, 2020
I had dived into this book with great scepticism believing like most others; it would either be too superficial and siding on the socio-economic aspect of the revolution, regurgitating the same old quasi-Marxist argument of the emergent bourgeoisie enticing the rural class for their own ambition; or that it would be too esoteric and dealing entirely with a philosophy saturated with the establishment of a bacchanalian republic imitating an ultra egalitarian golden age; but what I'd discovered from the prologue to the conclusion was a very balanced presentation of perhaps the first ever European media revolution!
Israel demonstrates, by first establishing the many arguments which have emerged to indicate their causal relationships with something that culminated into perhaps the bloodiest act of organized violence in history, to not only diluting their value but also deconstructing his own argument of the effective use of the press at the disposal of an educated and unrepresentative fringe group to first goad through legal channels, the administration into accepting a democratic republicanism based on the law of an atheistic natural right philosophy. Camille Desmoulins practically incited with his 'harangues' some five to six thousand people (a number given by Duzuroy) into sieging the king in his Versailles palace and forcing him to read the Constitution. A very compromising situation for a king!
Israel delineates the tale of a group of intellectuals from apolitical circles elevating themselves to an ultra-political level, simultaneously marginalizing the haute bourgeoisie, professionals, and aristocracy as well as greatly devaluing religion as a guide to human conduct.
This shared philosophy that had directed men toward a common goal of forming a society with a liberated peoples soon branched out from a liberalism contesting the aristocracy to then an anti-Rousseausim (even though Rousseau's bust became the symbol of the revolutionary cause held up during the third anniversary of the fall of the Bastille on 14th July 1792) into; a militant liberalism of Brissot (whose name embodied this philosophy of the faction later to become the Brissotin); a populist authoritarianism of Robespierre and Marat who sought to institutionalize Rousseau.
Even monarchists were divided into a faction supporting the rule of Duc d'Orleans called the Orleanists and the constitutional monarchists under Bailly.
Israel deals less with the psychology and personalities of the revolutionary leaders (like Simon Schama's Citizen), or the downtrodden economy culminating in a series of tax reforms which caused an otherwise mute lower class to gain so loud a voice that it caused ruptures in the very foundation of European social order of the ages (like William Doyle's French Revolution). What Israel's Revolutionary Ideas does is that it portrays finely how the unchecked and unhindered press manipulated (along with the unbalanced expansion of rural vs urban towns), an entire class of citizen into believing that traditional socio-economic-politico-military, non-egalitarian order having its roots in a religion which treats monarchy, aristocracy, and general material inequality as basic elements of society is depriving them of their 'natural rights' and thus ought to be subverted!
The revolutionary leadership literally 'enlightened' the population with the inequalities that they had been suffering due to their own ignorance of the rights given them (by Nature and birthright) and an ignorance which the aristocracy cunningly exploited.
The leadership however itself did not move in a linear, uniform, and coordinated manner. It too underwent continuous rifts and ideological conflicts and was divided in at least five ideological blocs prior to Robespierre's coup of 1793.
Contrary to popular belief, Rousseauistic philosophy had a mere symbolic value. Most of the revolutionaries, Brissot in particular (Condorcet and his wife Sophie with her educated feminist clique including Olympe de Gouges and Palm Etta d'Aelders) were strongly against the chauvinism, patriotism, female subordination to her male charge, and the excessive press and theatre censorship in his works.
Israel says that La Harpe rightly pointed towards d'Holbach, Diderot, Mirabeau and (that titan) Voltaire, as the contentious agents poisoning the revolutionary minds. While it was the authoritarian populists, Robespierre and Marat who were staunch Rousseauists.
This book is scholarly, detailed, and impressive. And because it is written in gripping prose, despite its academic quality I cannot call it dense. It requires patience and that is a virtue mandatory if you are to absorb and assimilate this 600 paged work of extraordinary research.
If you want a well articulated, thoroughly engaging, and a balanced conception of the dynamics of Revolutionary France, then this book is a must read.
Israel demonstrates, by first establishing the many arguments which have emerged to indicate their causal relationships with something that culminated into perhaps the bloodiest act of organized violence in history, to not only diluting their value but also deconstructing his own argument of the effective use of the press at the disposal of an educated and unrepresentative fringe group to first goad through legal channels, the administration into accepting a democratic republicanism based on the law of an atheistic natural right philosophy. Camille Desmoulins practically incited with his 'harangues' some five to six thousand people (a number given by Duzuroy) into sieging the king in his Versailles palace and forcing him to read the Constitution. A very compromising situation for a king!
Israel delineates the tale of a group of intellectuals from apolitical circles elevating themselves to an ultra-political level, simultaneously marginalizing the haute bourgeoisie, professionals, and aristocracy as well as greatly devaluing religion as a guide to human conduct.
This shared philosophy that had directed men toward a common goal of forming a society with a liberated peoples soon branched out from a liberalism contesting the aristocracy to then an anti-Rousseausim (even though Rousseau's bust became the symbol of the revolutionary cause held up during the third anniversary of the fall of the Bastille on 14th July 1792) into; a militant liberalism of Brissot (whose name embodied this philosophy of the faction later to become the Brissotin); a populist authoritarianism of Robespierre and Marat who sought to institutionalize Rousseau.
Even monarchists were divided into a faction supporting the rule of Duc d'Orleans called the Orleanists and the constitutional monarchists under Bailly.
Israel deals less with the psychology and personalities of the revolutionary leaders (like Simon Schama's Citizen), or the downtrodden economy culminating in a series of tax reforms which caused an otherwise mute lower class to gain so loud a voice that it caused ruptures in the very foundation of European social order of the ages (like William Doyle's French Revolution). What Israel's Revolutionary Ideas does is that it portrays finely how the unchecked and unhindered press manipulated (along with the unbalanced expansion of rural vs urban towns), an entire class of citizen into believing that traditional socio-economic-politico-military, non-egalitarian order having its roots in a religion which treats monarchy, aristocracy, and general material inequality as basic elements of society is depriving them of their 'natural rights' and thus ought to be subverted!
The revolutionary leadership literally 'enlightened' the population with the inequalities that they had been suffering due to their own ignorance of the rights given them (by Nature and birthright) and an ignorance which the aristocracy cunningly exploited.
The leadership however itself did not move in a linear, uniform, and coordinated manner. It too underwent continuous rifts and ideological conflicts and was divided in at least five ideological blocs prior to Robespierre's coup of 1793.
Contrary to popular belief, Rousseauistic philosophy had a mere symbolic value. Most of the revolutionaries, Brissot in particular (Condorcet and his wife Sophie with her educated feminist clique including Olympe de Gouges and Palm Etta d'Aelders) were strongly against the chauvinism, patriotism, female subordination to her male charge, and the excessive press and theatre censorship in his works.
Israel says that La Harpe rightly pointed towards d'Holbach, Diderot, Mirabeau and (that titan) Voltaire, as the contentious agents poisoning the revolutionary minds. While it was the authoritarian populists, Robespierre and Marat who were staunch Rousseauists.
This book is scholarly, detailed, and impressive. And because it is written in gripping prose, despite its academic quality I cannot call it dense. It requires patience and that is a virtue mandatory if you are to absorb and assimilate this 600 paged work of extraordinary research.
If you want a well articulated, thoroughly engaging, and a balanced conception of the dynamics of Revolutionary France, then this book is a must read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 7, 2014
Een bijzonder interessant boek, maar je moet wel een liefhebber zijn.Ik heb meer van deze schrijver gelezen, o.a. een heel goed boek over de "Dutch Republic". In dit boek geeft hij een geschiedenis van de Franse revolutie aan de hand van verlichtingsideeen van de mensen, die de revolutie bewerkstelligden.
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