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Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity offers readers an accessible and lively introduction to the French Revolution that is also grounded in the latest and most sophisticated historical scholarship. It does so through two paths―a book and a companion CD-ROM. The book gives a brief but comprehensive narrative of the Revolution. The CD-ROM offers readers an unprecedented multimedia overview of the Revolution through images, primary documents, and song. Together they introduce readers to the fascinating story of the world’s first great revolution. The book, written by Lynn Hunt and Jack Censer, preeminent authorities on the French Revolution, includes selected images and documents from the accompanying CD-ROM, prepared by the authors with the support of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University and the American Social History Project at City University of New York. Features of the CD-ROM include primary documents (carefully chosen, translated, and placed in their proper historical contexts by a team of historians), songs, maps, and more than 300 images (caricatures, portraits, sculptures, and photographs of artifacts of material culture)―many previously available only to specialists in the field. These hard-to-find images, gathered from repositories in France and the United States, comprise an unparalleled and powerful visual record of the Revolution. Given the centrality of visual artifacts (imagery, symbolism, and print culture) to the history of the Revolution, and the inability of print reproduction to present such images with clarity and detail, the companion CD-ROM will provide an entry into the Revolution unavailable in any other form.
232 pages, Hardcover
First published March 6, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 7, 2025
How to make the French Revolution dull.
This college textbook is full of academic jargon, theory, and bluster. I have rarely been so bored reading a book about such an exciting period. There are several reasons. Probably first and foremost is that this was written to focus on class, race, and gender. Only one of these conveniently fits into the narrative. Digging into the history of the French Revolution to locate how it impacted slaves is like going to McDonalds for healthy salads. Another problem is that it appears that Lynn Hunt was helping one of her students, Jack...Mason(?)...Censer publish a book. That means that there is the student generating content, and a professor editing or juxtaposing something else. Lastly, there is the accompanying CD. I did not have access to the CD; but it appears to be more of the defining element of this book rather than the book itself.
The book is fairly short at about 200 pages. It is divided into six topical chapters. Each chapter is split between an overview and excerpts from accompanying documents. The full documents may be included in the overemphasized CD. Breaking with the mold of common introductory course texts, this does not have discussion questions or prompts. The excerpts frequently repeat the same things as the overview. There is an over reliance on philosophy and laws (which were quickly discarded and rewritten). A few letters cast some insight, but rarely adds or contradicts the overview. There are pointedly no letters or documents from Marat, Robespierre, or St. Just. And there is only one from Napoleon. The excerpt from Napoleon's brother telling provincial administrators that their duty is to the power structure rather than a document (the Constitution) is interesting, but it is repeated from the overview.
As a History major in the 1990s and 2000s, I despaired of the constant class, race, and gender model. I suspect that it existed to give historians a new angle to publish. The logical progression was victims and victimizers and then DEI. Why so much history has to focus on marginal players was a strange way to introduce topics like the French Revolution. The first chapters in the book focus on social class, the common sense explanation. But then spends way too much time on theoretical and philosophical meanderings. Did the peasants rise up in blood lust because they read Rosseau and he resonated with them? Did they read Paine's Rights of Man? Sure, they may influence some of the partisans in the chaos of the Revolution. But bread, taxes, and privileges were at the heart of the Revolution.
Race and gender? Women played a big role int the early stages of the Revolution. I am skeptical that the march on Versailles was just thousands of poor women. I am skeptical that these furies were the ones storming the Bastille and desecrating the dead. But that is due to my training as a historian - question the narrative. This book tries very hard to emphasize the role of women in the Revolution - almost always peacefully, like Gandhi. I think there was only one instance describing them as tearing apart the bodies of dead Royalist soldiers - the Swiss guards. The rest of the time they are leading protests and chanting slogans peacefully in mass. And because of such wonderful assembly, they were rewarded with different law codes, even if they did not write them or participate in their drafting. While I cannot refute the actual laws themselves (finalized as the Napoleonic Code), I acknowledge that the laws, with respect to women, were far ahead of their time and not reinstated until the 1950s and 1970s. But, again, is that the key take-aways from the French Revolution?
There is only one chapter on the Revolution in the colonies. There are no slave narratives. There are no excerpts or quotes from L'Overture or Dessalines. This book does not show what they say or what they felt. Rather, there are excerpts from colonists and commentators, but nothing from the slaves (or mulattos who were seemingly a separate caste). This is the only book on the subject that spends any substantial time with the colonies, but I suspect a biography on L'Overture would be more thorough. The idea here may not information, but rather virtue signaling.
Mason/ Censer is a Goodreads author with a few books to his credit on early-modern European History. Lynn Hunt has over 30 books listed on Goodreads. Most of them appear to be college textbooks written with her students. It is good to see experienced historians helping their students break into publishing. Although that too is something of a double standard with some academicians relying upon the research and work of their students to build their own publication record. This can also be problematic is the student wants to pursue one angle, and the mentor wants the student to pursue another angle. The contrast can make for a much less enjoyable reading. I have not read Mason's other works, but I suspect that some aspects of the present book were pushed onto him. The philosophical parts of the French Revolution appear to be Mason's vibe. I think the class, race, and gender aspect was pushed onto it.
The CD is over-hyped. I don't know what all is there; but the authors push it way too much throughout the book. It is good to have a solid collection of primary source material. It is great to limit term papers to those familiar sources. But if those sources were the ones excerpted in each chapter, than they are a curated collection of foremost philosophical works, drafts of laws, and a few letters and dispatches from the educated upper classes. They provide a biased view.
Overall, this was a very slow read on a very exciting topic. I enjoyed some of the concise storytelling of Napoleon's rise and the loss of Haiti. The detailed discussions of political clubs and factions rising and falling was overwhelming and somewhat anticlimactic. The choice of topics, subtopics, and excerpts were repetitive and slowed the reading. The academic prose did not help in trying to digest what was written or what was described. Combining academic prose with 18th Century philosophy is bedtime reading.
This college textbook is full of academic jargon, theory, and bluster. I have rarely been so bored reading a book about such an exciting period. There are several reasons. Probably first and foremost is that this was written to focus on class, race, and gender. Only one of these conveniently fits into the narrative. Digging into the history of the French Revolution to locate how it impacted slaves is like going to McDonalds for healthy salads. Another problem is that it appears that Lynn Hunt was helping one of her students, Jack...Mason(?)...Censer publish a book. That means that there is the student generating content, and a professor editing or juxtaposing something else. Lastly, there is the accompanying CD. I did not have access to the CD; but it appears to be more of the defining element of this book rather than the book itself.
The book is fairly short at about 200 pages. It is divided into six topical chapters. Each chapter is split between an overview and excerpts from accompanying documents. The full documents may be included in the overemphasized CD. Breaking with the mold of common introductory course texts, this does not have discussion questions or prompts. The excerpts frequently repeat the same things as the overview. There is an over reliance on philosophy and laws (which were quickly discarded and rewritten). A few letters cast some insight, but rarely adds or contradicts the overview. There are pointedly no letters or documents from Marat, Robespierre, or St. Just. And there is only one from Napoleon. The excerpt from Napoleon's brother telling provincial administrators that their duty is to the power structure rather than a document (the Constitution) is interesting, but it is repeated from the overview.
As a History major in the 1990s and 2000s, I despaired of the constant class, race, and gender model. I suspect that it existed to give historians a new angle to publish. The logical progression was victims and victimizers and then DEI. Why so much history has to focus on marginal players was a strange way to introduce topics like the French Revolution. The first chapters in the book focus on social class, the common sense explanation. But then spends way too much time on theoretical and philosophical meanderings. Did the peasants rise up in blood lust because they read Rosseau and he resonated with them? Did they read Paine's Rights of Man? Sure, they may influence some of the partisans in the chaos of the Revolution. But bread, taxes, and privileges were at the heart of the Revolution.
Race and gender? Women played a big role int the early stages of the Revolution. I am skeptical that the march on Versailles was just thousands of poor women. I am skeptical that these furies were the ones storming the Bastille and desecrating the dead. But that is due to my training as a historian - question the narrative. This book tries very hard to emphasize the role of women in the Revolution - almost always peacefully, like Gandhi. I think there was only one instance describing them as tearing apart the bodies of dead Royalist soldiers - the Swiss guards. The rest of the time they are leading protests and chanting slogans peacefully in mass. And because of such wonderful assembly, they were rewarded with different law codes, even if they did not write them or participate in their drafting. While I cannot refute the actual laws themselves (finalized as the Napoleonic Code), I acknowledge that the laws, with respect to women, were far ahead of their time and not reinstated until the 1950s and 1970s. But, again, is that the key take-aways from the French Revolution?
There is only one chapter on the Revolution in the colonies. There are no slave narratives. There are no excerpts or quotes from L'Overture or Dessalines. This book does not show what they say or what they felt. Rather, there are excerpts from colonists and commentators, but nothing from the slaves (or mulattos who were seemingly a separate caste). This is the only book on the subject that spends any substantial time with the colonies, but I suspect a biography on L'Overture would be more thorough. The idea here may not information, but rather virtue signaling.
Mason/ Censer is a Goodreads author with a few books to his credit on early-modern European History. Lynn Hunt has over 30 books listed on Goodreads. Most of them appear to be college textbooks written with her students. It is good to see experienced historians helping their students break into publishing. Although that too is something of a double standard with some academicians relying upon the research and work of their students to build their own publication record. This can also be problematic is the student wants to pursue one angle, and the mentor wants the student to pursue another angle. The contrast can make for a much less enjoyable reading. I have not read Mason's other works, but I suspect that some aspects of the present book were pushed onto him. The philosophical parts of the French Revolution appear to be Mason's vibe. I think the class, race, and gender aspect was pushed onto it.
The CD is over-hyped. I don't know what all is there; but the authors push it way too much throughout the book. It is good to have a solid collection of primary source material. It is great to limit term papers to those familiar sources. But if those sources were the ones excerpted in each chapter, than they are a curated collection of foremost philosophical works, drafts of laws, and a few letters and dispatches from the educated upper classes. They provide a biased view.
Overall, this was a very slow read on a very exciting topic. I enjoyed some of the concise storytelling of Napoleon's rise and the loss of Haiti. The detailed discussions of political clubs and factions rising and falling was overwhelming and somewhat anticlimactic. The choice of topics, subtopics, and excerpts were repetitive and slowed the reading. The academic prose did not help in trying to digest what was written or what was described. Combining academic prose with 18th Century philosophy is bedtime reading.
October 8, 2017
Comprehensive in its scope and perspective. The multimedia CD adds depth with the documents, timelines, and illustrations of the time period. The book stays fairly objective by documenting the events of the revolution in its idealism and intent, yet does not hide the brutality and insensitivity. By its conclusion, all perspectives are brought together, along with providing its impact (especially on their American counterparts), as well as a wealth of historical commentary by those well-versed on the topic.
December 13, 2018
Assigned text for Deb Buffton's French Revolution course at UWL. Short concise book with a good selection of original documents. Need other sources for more explanation of many events and people. At the same time I listened to the Teaching Company course which was rich in details.
June 15, 2010
This is not a well-written book and I learned more about the French Revolution from the relevant chapters of Gordon A. Craig's "Europe,1815-1914" and John Merriman's "A History of Modern Europe". It may be intended for college students but is dumbed-down and simplistic. The only saving grace of the book is the included CD-ROM with documents from the time of the Revolution.
I first read this book in the spring of 2009 for a college history course and have just re-read it in preparation for a course on 19th century Europe this fall.
I first read this book in the spring of 2009 for a college history course and have just re-read it in preparation for a course on 19th century Europe this fall.
September 18, 2012
Read this book for the class European Politics and Diplomacy. The first couple of weeks of the course we have been going over the French Revolution. At the start of this course I knew nothing of Robespierre, the Terror, the original attempt for a constitutional monarchy...ect. I have learned a lot from this but as usual it is kind of a dull history book. It's only saving grace was that of its us of primary documents. Every class we would analyze them in order to gain more insight of the situations and the people. Overall I'm glad to be through with this.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews