The French Revolution did not begin with the guillotine. It began with debt, hunger, privilege, failed reform, political fear, and a monarchy that could no longer command belief.
In The French Revolution: Power, Terror, and the Fall of the Monarchy, Gordon J. MacKenzie places one of history's most explosive upheavals on trial. Using the structure of a courtroom case, the book examines the Old Regime, Louis XVI, the Estates-General, the National Assembly, Paris and the crowd, the Church, Varennes, war, the fall of the monarchy, the king's execution, the Terror, Robespierre, and the rise of Napoleon.
Was the Revolution a necessary assault on privilege, or did it unleash a new machinery of fear? Was Louis XVI a doomed reformer, a weak king, or a political danger? Did the Terror save the Republic, or corrupt the Revolution's promise beyond repair?
Clear, forceful, and accessible, this book follows the evidence from Versailles to the Bastille, from the National Assembly to the scaffold, and from revolutionary idealism to military empire.
A dramatic work of historical nonfiction for readers interested in the French Revolution, monarchy, political violence, the Reign of Terror, Robespierre, Napoleon, and the birth of modern politics.
