The French Revolution

by David Andress

In this miraculously compressed, incisive book, David Andress argues that it was the peasantry of France who made and defended the Revolution of 1789. That the peasant revolution benefited far more people, in more far reaching ways, than the revolution of lawyerly elites and urban radicals that has dominated our view of the revolutionary period. History has paid more attention to Robespierre, Danton, and Bonaparte than it has to the millions of French peasants who were the first to rise up in 1789, and the most ardent in defending changes in land ownership and political rights. "Those furthest from the centre rarely get their fair share of the light," Andress writes, and the peasants were patronized, reviled, and often persecuted by urban elites for not following their lead. Andress's book reveals a rural world of conscious, hard-working people and their struggles to defend their ways of life and improve the lives of their children and communities.

Genres: History, France, Nonfiction

216 pages, Hardcover

Published August 22, 2019

About the author

David Andress, a leading historian of the French Revolution, is Reader in Modern European History at the University of Portsmouth and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Reviews

[MarkWelch]

The book, The French Revolution: A Peasant’s Revolt, recounts the historical period from shortly before the meeting of the Estates-General, to the approximate period of Bonaparte’s appointment as Consul. It attempts to focus on the rural people of the land, the peasants, and their struggles both before the revolution of 1789 and during the revolutionary decade.
The rural population, under the crushing millstones of seigneurial dues, rents on lands they and their ancestors farmed, tithes, and the entire tax burden of the monarchy, nobility, and clergy, rose up against these injustices to be the primary mover of the French Revolution of 1789 and also, in spite of it all, the primary beneficiaries. Or, it is if you believe the thesis proposed by the book. From being crushed, sometimes quite literally through the labor necessary to pay all of their various dues, to, over the course of the decade of the revolution, de jure paying all the same value but in the simplified form of rents and taxes through value in kind and a vastly devalued currency. Another suggestion in the book is that it was the peasantry, the vast majority of France’s population, that held the revolutionary spirit., without any evidence when justification is assumed.
The book begins with telling how the peasants had lived prior to the revolutionary events, how the people of the land lived their lives, using contradictory laws and dues to one lord or another through a complicated web of fiefs that would dissect a rural village or hamlet to their advantage over generations through the courts that generally preferred the royalty over the nobility, to the peasant’s benefit. To describe in broad terms what the people of the land wanted in terms of change out of the revolution based on their Cahiers they had written to the Estates-General, generally an end to the de jure tax-free nobility and a simpler more equitable tax code. Then describing the revolution of 1789 and how this revolution goes through its multiple facets and ups and downs and pendulum swings of various governments and how they challenged the status quo, rarely to the benefit of the peasants. Before finally arriving at the first consulate of France described in very short terms, since this is broadly considered the end of the revolutionary period for the revolution of 1789. The book does so by being organized into chapters. It should be noted that the chapters are oft broken up by pictures that are not explained and only vaguely or somewhat related to what the chapter is currently talking of. The story, if it can be called such, is a telling of events in the approximate order that they happened, quickly jumping from general, giving more specific examples, generally without citations, before going back to describing the general overview again.
The book does very well as a broad overview of the period. The book is compressed so that it covers much without covering anything well. The supposed argument does not come through as compelling in any section. In some areas, there are proposed certain things as if fact and no evidence is provided for the legitimacy of said proposals. For example, in the Epilogue, it is said that France went to the concept of dividing all lands equally between all legitimate heirs, and then goes on to say how this caused family size to decrease and life expectancy to increase, within a generation, without any evidence for how or why these are in any way connected to the land inheritance law change. It’s also missing focus on what is touched on in only a few areas, that the poor only really got what they wanted when they put the fear of God into their government, vox populi vox deii.
The Peasants, at once the majority of France’s population, some estimates putting them at over 65% of the population, while also paying the majority of the taxes paid by those of the third estate, began as a group unable due to their financial situation to rise up in French society that had allowed wealthy members of the third estate to buy their way into the nobility, to being considered legally equal to those (now former) nobles while still under much the same economic hardships. There is not enough reasoned argument in the book that the revolution of 1789 is the reason for the differences experienced by the French peasants as compared to other equivalent peasants in other countries, nor is there enough reasoned argument for why what the revolution did for or to the peasants resulted in the differences claimed that the French peasants experienced post-revolution. During the revolutionary decade, there was enough upheaval in the various levels of government to allow for the peasants to, regionally and on a likely limited scale, not pay their taxes, which would allow some amount of economic prosperity for those able to build up their own wealth as now-sovereign people, though often not themselves voting citizens, to improve their lives to some degree, but this line of reasoning is downplayed through the introductory reasoning in the book, where it describes the life of a peasant being one of a person adapting to changing situations and using all they could to their advantage, for their mere survival if nothing less nor more.
Overall, The French Revolution: A Peasant’s Revolt, is longer than it needs to be to make the points it does, and shorter than it needs to be to make the points it wants. Describing the status quo of the rural peasantry, to their uprisings coinciding with the Estates-General, to their further oppression under the various revolutionary governments, to the return to what amounts to the old status quo under different names and phrases.

[Abhyuday · Rating 2 out of 5]

I haven't fully read the book (only up to and including chapter 3) and for good reason it lost my interest very fast although it was gripping at the start the condensation and summarisation felt rather lacklustre

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book. Very short history of the French Revolution with an eye on the peasants. So many typical history books focus on the royalty or aristocracy or upper third class this was refreshing.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very concise, easily understandable yet informative summary of the French Revolution.

[Liam Doherty · Rating 3 out of 5]

A race through the French Revolution.

[Xoxojillzian · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 - unnecessarily complex but a good thesis overall