After the French Revolution: Six Critics of Democracy and Nationalism

by Jack Ernest Shalom Hayward

The French Revolution has generally been recognized as the starting point of modernity. It is the source, in their modern guise, of the founding myths of the nation as the basis of political community and democracy and as the only legitimate way of managing political affairs. While the Revolution, narrowly defined, has been exhaustively denounced and eulogized, its antecedents and more especially its legacies, have been neglected.
After the French Revolution aims to rectify this phenomenon. It starts by considering the ideological precursors (including Montesquieu, Rousseau, Condorcet and Sieyes) and the political protagonists (notably Robespierre and the Idealogues) who set the scene for nineteenth century debate and action. Six of the critics of what became the predominant tradition in France are considered in turn, ranging from the extreme Right to the extreme Left. Maistre represents the reactionary, theocratic Right, while Saint-Simon represents the modernizing industrial Right. Liberalism is advocated by the constitutionalist Constant and Toqueville, the champion of the decentralisation. On the Left, Proudhon is the exponent of pluralist and libertarian socialism, while Blanqui embodies the recourse to revolutionary dictatorship.
In the concluding chapter, Jack Hayward asks the "Is the Revolution over?" While so many in France and elsewhere have sought either to "end the Revolution" or more rarely proclaimed its permanence, the Revolution as a set of aspirations has not been achieved. While France itself has at least stable democratic institutions, the expectations aroused two hundred years ago have still not been satisfied. The Revolution is not yet over.

Genres: History

336 pages, Hardcover

Published November 1, 1991