Contesting the French Revolution

by Paul Hanson

Contesting the French Revolution provides an insightful overview of one of history’s most significant events, as well as examining the most significant historiographical debates about this period.

Genres: History

256 pages, Hardcover

First published March 9, 2009

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty interesting book on the French Revolution and its impact on the world both then and now. The book consists of ten chapters covering the whole period from the Ancien Regime to the rise of Napoleon.

Each chapter reads a bit like an academic article or some lecture notes and as such I'm assuming the book is aimed towards the university student rather than the general reader. At times my lack of knowledge of the subject made it difficult to follow but not too often to make it a chore to read. Maybe a short glossary would have been useful but I did what a lot of people would do these days and referred to Wikipedia for a bit of help.

This isn't a good book to read as a 'first book' on the revolution; for that you will need to look elsewhere. But you don't need to be an expert on the subject to enjoy it - I've only read a couple of books on this period and didn't find it hard going. In fact Paul Hanson's writing style made it easy and enjoyable to read.

[Jasmine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only had time to read half of it (shh) but it was really interesting! What Hanson does is taking lots of theories and analyses and compares them. However, you need a lot of background information on the methods and theories for this book to really grab you, and often I didn't have those. This is not a book for beginners who wants to know a bit more about the french revolution, this is a book for people who wants to discuss theories as to WHY the french revolution happened, and WHERE it begun.

[AskHistorians]

A good series of essays about several aspects of the Revolution, good but a little hard to read.