Citizens: Chronicle of the French Revolution

Initially I thought that there was too much detail, but the more I read the more I appreciated the detail and nuance on the links.If you know nothing or think you know a lot about the French revolution, you will be further informed by this excellent book.

The French Revolution was many things. Simon Schama is aware that, even in 875 pages, only some of those things can be told. This book focuses on individuals and their personal and political development. For all the variety of background of the main revolutionary players, there are some common threads.Popular as well as academic culture had, in the 18th century, been promoting an idealised 'natural' way of life; the antithesis of the stilted rituals and dress of the Court at Versailles. Schama makes much of the enormous influence of Rousseau. Those revolutionaries with any education (most of them; the revolution was largely an aristocratic movement), had been taught to revere the great ideals of the Roman Republic. Many had also seen service in the American War of Independence. The French motivation for involvement may have focused on trouncing the old British enemy. Fighting for Republican ideals only to return to the Divine monarchy that was Louis XVI's France seemed like unfinished business.Schama deals in depth with the mixed personality of the King. A reforming king, interested in the sciences, happy to abolish oppressive feudal practices, he was, nevertheless, a prisoner of his role. His coronation had acted out his Divine appointment. This mixture of reason and ancient superstition made him weak in practice. Time and again he would make quasi democratic concessions, only to renege later.A picture emerges of a society so ill at ease with itself, that it feels it needs a complete cleansing and makeover. In practice that can only be done with a complete extinction of the population. For all the destruction of privelege, custom and people, Schama points out just how much of the old France survived for centuries. The Catholic Church has withered, but is still intact. Some great noble estates continue to be owned by the great nobility.This book is a terrific introduction to a complex and confusing series of terrible events. It has inspired this reader to want to discover more.

Fascinating book liberally dotted with Schama's tongue-in-cheek manner, a great read. However, the print is very small and I really struggled with it despite more-or-less normal eyesight.

Written in 1989, this is Professor Schama’s third book, a nine hundred and fifty page chronicle of events and a period which fundamentally changed European and world history. It sent shock waves well beyond the French borders. Without doubt, many crowned heads lost much sleep. Schama has become known for writing from unusual perspectives, seeing events in different ways which makes this book a great addition to any already crammed bookshelf on the French Revolution.Amid the blood and terror, Schama finds the revolutionary zeal which drove the Revolution and sustained its progress. He makes the point that “revolution” was a metaphor drawn from astronomy, a constant turning of worlds to reveal the already known, predictable and anticipated. This revolution was the opposite - inauguration of the novel and the unexpected. (Without doubt, this revolutionary zeal is now part of the French psyche still being played on French streets, e.g. President Macron’s raising of the retirement age was met with wide spread protests, the ramparts replaced by burning tyres and cars.; the gilets jaune nation-wide protests were another modern example. Schama captures the ways in which this street fighting spirit became apart of the DNA of France.)In many history texts on the revolution, it is almost possible to forget the fundamental upheaval in values and everyday lives as lived by the “common people’, changed from “subjects” to “citizens” but not with Schama. He is as interested the majority of the populations as he is in the revolutionary leaders and royalty. “... on the 1st of May, France was still a monarchy and the first in Europe’s. On the 9th of May ... France became a Republic.” (P.253)He points out that, unsurprisingly, the revolution was started at the Palais-Royale, Versailles by the inflationary bread prices causing not just a “dearth but of famine”. Against the splendour, wealth and excess of Versailles, people starved. Being able to chart the lives of crowned heads and the newly elevated “citizens” is a fundamental strength of the book.Recommended.

I read this book with such passion and energy, that it even disintegrated. If you think, you know about French revolution: why it started and how - ended, so I must to say, you don't know anything. This monumental book describes a well known story through people side: high aristocracy, royal family, academics or just ordinary people. They all had their own stories and different fates.It is a story about the king, who just wanted to make locks, about the lawyer who planed to create a New Rome and killed all sinister citizens. It is about vagrant doctor, who was insulted by The Academy and became a vicious publisher, who ended his life as new Jesus. Suddenly, subjects were told they had become Citizens; an aggregate of subjects held in place by injustice and intimidation had become a Nation. Don't fear those, who shout loudly, fear those, who are silent, because only these people create a new, bloody regime.In the first part of XVIII c. France doesn't have own history and live only as Classical country, but during the Terror, it demolished all its heritage and massacred thousands of people. For what? For the Liberty? But..... "Liberty is a bitch who must be bedded on a mattress of corpses."- said Saint-Just. S. Schama is fantastic historian and I proud, that he has connection with Lithuania.

I thought I understood Bourbon France, and the revolution...but I was woefully under-informed. This book brings Louis XVI France into sharpe focus and introduces an ENLIGHTENED monarchy and French zeitgiest that is both credible, and satisfying due to its access to recent scholarship. If you really want to understand why Louis and Marie-Antoinette have been wronged by history, but largely brought about their own doom, read/listen to this great history.

Exactly what I ordered. It came with a few days of delay because DHL somehow lost it but at the end it is "at home and safe" :)

There are many books on the French Revolution, finding a good one is much more difficult. I looked at dozens of books before I came to this one. I find researching the French Revolution difficult due to its modern perception. Many books on the subject I find to be bias and not really well researched. The bias comes from the publics view of this subject in history. The French Revolution gave rise to Democracy, human rights and so on. Since these are things were take for granted and at face value, we are taught since high school that the Revolution was a source for good in the world and that anything in history that does not lead to a tolerant, democratic society is wrong. This is simplistic and not academic thinking. Explaining the revolution as the big bad upper class oppressing the lower ones, superstition vs reason ad so fourth is a very Marxist and simplistic view. This is why I chose this book and was very pleased. The author made no suggestions of the Revolution as being any better, force of good or progressive in history, he presents it as ‘what essentially happened’. Moreover I was very surprised, as he looked at The Ancient Regime, not as a backward, intolerant and evil in nature but more modern than I could understand. For example, most of the nobility wanted noble titles to be earned through merit not by inheritance, they wanted in creased taxation as they were the richest. Most wanted a separate legal system and to abolish the guilds. Many even wanted a constitution! What is presented is that the Ancient Regime was in fact far from revolution and more on the cusp of change. The author actually presents the revolution not as the little guy fighting the big bad 1%, but as a hijacking by radicals. That once things were set in motion, the most radical elements of society took over the revolution. This was a great book that is extremely well researched and argued. The author makes you rethink what the Revolution was about and why it happened, not what you should believe.

Totally absorbing account of French peoples life at the time of Louis xv1 and the revolution period. In very full detail