Jean Paul Marat a Study in Radicalism

by Louis R. Gottschalk

Book by Gottschalk, Louis Reichenthal

Genres: French Revolution, Biography Memoir, 18th Century, History, France

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Louis Reichenthal Gottschalk was a Professor of History at the University of Chicago, specializing in Lafayette and the French Revolution.

Reviews

[Nigel Ritchie · Rating 2 out of 5]

If this biography were really as good as some reviewers claim, it would probably still be in print. Gottschalk uses the example of Marat’s pre-revolutionary scientific failure to suggest that his political radicalism was largely fuelled by embitterment at his rejection by the Royal Academy of Sciences, and that his later reincarnation as a revolutionary journalist was an opportunistic intervention founded upon a “martyr complex”. He concludes that any influence Marat wielded over the People derived from his uncompromising devotion to the revolutionary cause rather than his political theories. Whether this is true or not, it is no reason to dismiss Marat's ideas out of hand. His progressive views on women, slaves and the poor as well as the pragmatic need for a determined revolutionary vanguard leadership were light years ahead of most of his contemporaries. Following its translation into French in 1929, this biography has dominated the field for over sixty years, and much received wisdom about Marat can be traced back to it. This is not to say it lacks merit, merely to be extremely wary while reading it, keep an open mind and try, where possible, to read the full extracts in their context of production.
The best current biography by far is by Olivier Coquard, but if you don't read French, then Clifford Conner is a good starting-point (but not the Pluto edited edition), especially for the pre-revolutionary material, although he wears his politics on his sleeve so his reassessment swings too far the other way.
Finally, can we please knock this idea on the head that Marat was a ruthless, amoral psychopath. His calls for heads to roll, while hard to understand from our comfortable contemporary viewpoint, were relatively infrequent, always tied to a specific threatening situation, and often rhetorical. The letters of Manon Roland, so often lauded as a moderate, as indeed the published views of numerous other journalists, were often far more chilling in their callous attitudes to spilt blood, and their reckless calls for war or for the mob to come out onto the street. Like Pandora's box, once the lid was opened it was hard to close it back up again. For many, Marat became, and still is, a convenient scapegoat for all the Revolution's excess, even though he was dead before the Terror even began. Perhaps the most interesting question, while reading this book, is to keep asking yourself why…

[Declan Melia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange that the single only other review of this book calls it ‘unbiased’, it is not that. In fact, it’s quite strange to read a biography in which author clearly (and, in the preface, openly) is not fond of his subject. Still, that’s not a problem, all histories are biased, sometimes tacitly, sometimes less so. For a character as polarising as Marat, for whom the general historical consensus is one of outright hostility, this actually represents something of a middle ground. Gottschalk is a talented writer, the research and understanding here is appropriately thorough and the moments when he puts himself into the writing raise genuine smiles. There’s much here to learn that’s not accessible through more general texts, Marat was a monarchist, then an advocate of despotism right up to the time of the Republic, he was probably not a jewel thief, but he probably was a charlatan. Gottschalk’s psychological assessment of the man whom everyone seems to want to label a psychopath becomes a little repetitive, which would be more forgivable if it was more convincing. Still, a valuable book in that it’s the first comprehensive Marat biography to be written in English, in fact Gottschalk responded to a hole in the market as pointed out by historian R. C. H. Catteral. Opportunistic? Perhaps Gottschalk has more in common with his subject than he thinks. Three stars.

[Nick Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really only knew that Marat was a journalist, he egged things on during the French Revolution, and he was murdered in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday. The latter was mainly just from trivia you see asked various ways on “Jeopardy!” But this book was recommended as definitive. I found it enlightening, never knowing Marat had written papers on fire, electricity, and other scientific topics. I like the political philosophy being delineated from its main proponents, and though the author doesn’t psycho analyze, he does point to the mental state of Marat and its evolution amid the Revolution. I learned a lot and recommend it if you, too want to learn more.

[madi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very great starting point in a basic overview of Marat's influences. However, I would definitely recommend Clifford Conner's work over this, as Gottschalk refers to Marat in some very outdated language, and still seems unreasonably biased against him, by biographic standards. For figures like Marat, the best source is Marat himself.