The historiography of the French Revolution
stretches back over two hundred years, as
commentators and historians have sought to
answer questions regarding the origins of
the Revolution, and its meaning and effects.
By the year 2000, many historians were saying
that the field of the French Revolution was
in intellectual disarray.
The old model or paradigm focusing on class
conflict has been challenged but no new explanatory
model had gained widespread support.
Nevertheless, there persists a very widespread
agreement to the effect that the French Revolution
was the watershed between the premodern and
modern eras of Western history.
== Contemporary and 19th-century historians
==
=== 
French historians – Adolphe Thiers ===
The first major work on the Revolution by
a French historian was published between 1823
and 1827 by Adolphe Thiers.
His celebrated Histoire de la Révolution
française, in ten volumes, founded his literary
reputation and launched his political career.
The complete work of ten volumes sold ten
thousand sets, an enormous number for the
time.
It went through four more editions.
Thiers' history was particularly popular in
liberal circles and among younger Parisians.
Written during the Restoration, when the tricolor
flag and singing the Marseillaise were forbidden,
the book praised the principles, leaders and
accomplishments of the 1789 Revolution; the
clear heroes were Mirabeau, Lafayette, and
other moderate leaders.
It condemned Marat, Robespierre and the other
radical leaders, and also condemned the monarchy,
aristocracy and clergy for their inability
to change.
The book played a notable role in undermining
the legitimacy of the Bourbon regime of Charles
X, and bringing about the July Revolution
of 1830.
Thiers went on to become a Deputy, twice Prime
Minister, and the first president of the Third
French Republic.
He also headed the French government in 1871
which suppressed the Paris Commune.
Thiers' history of the Revolution was praised
by the French authors Chateaubriand, Stendhal
et Sainte-Beuve, was translated into English
(1838) and Spanish (1889), and won him a seat
in the Académie française in 1834.
It was less appreciated by British critics,
in large part because of his favorable view
of the French Revolution and of Napoleon Bonaparte.
The British historian Thomas Carlyle, who
wrote his own history of the French Revolution,
complained that it "was far as possible from
meriting its high reputation", though he admitted
that Thiers is "a brisk man in his way, and
will tell you much if you know nothing."
The British historian Hugh Chisholm wrote
in the 1911 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica,
"Thiers' historical work is marked by extreme
inaccuracy, by prejudice which passes the
limits of accidental unfairness, and by an
almost complete indifference to the merits
as compared with the successes of his heroes."
=== 
Attacks from the right ===
The constant stream of major books began with
Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution
in France (1790).
In it he established the conservative stream
of opinion, wherein even the revolution of
July 1789 went "too far".
His book is not so much studied today as part
of Revolution studies, but rather as a classic
of conservative political philosophy.
In France, conspiracy theories were rife in
the highly charged political atmosphere, with
the Abbé Barruel, in perhaps the most influential
work Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism
(1797–1798), arguing that Freemasons and
other dissidents had been responsible for
an attempt to destroy the monarchy and the
Catholic Church.
Hippolyte Taine (1828–1893) was among the
more conservative of the originators of social
history.
His most famous work is his Origines de la
France Contemporaine (1875–1893).
Many minor studies appeared, such as The French
Revolution: A Study in Democracy by British
writer Nesta Webster, published in 1919.
It advanced the theory that the progress of
the French Revolution was considerably influenced
by a conspiracy conducted by "the lodges of
the German Freemasons and Illuminati".
This theory was believed by Winston Churchill,
who wrote in 1920: "This conspiracy against
civilization dates from the days of Weishaupt
... as a modern historian Mrs. Webster has
so ably shown, it played a recognisable role
on the French Revolution."
=== Liberal support for 1789–91 ===
A 
simplified description of the liberal approach
to the Revolution was typically to support
the achievements of the constitutional monarchy
of the National Assembly but disown the later
actions of radical violence like the invasion
of the Tuileries and the Terror.
French historians of the first half of the
19th century like the politician and man of
letters François Guizot (1787–1874), historian
François Mignet (published Histoire de la
Révolution française in 1824), and famous
philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville (L'Ancien
Régime et la Révolution, 1856) established
and wrote in this tradition.
Jules Michelet (1798–1874) – His Histoire
de la Révolution française, published after
the Revolution of 1848, is a major history.
Historian François Furet, a leader of the
Annales School, argues that his multivolume
history remains "the cornerstone of all revolutionary
historiography and is also a literary monument."
His aphoristic style emphasized his anti-clerical
republicanism.
=== Others in 19th century ===
Other French historians in the 19th-century
include:
Louis Blanc (1811–1882) – Blanc's 13-volume
Histoire de la Révolution française (1847–1862)
displays utopian socialist views, and sympathizes
with Jacobinism.
Théodore Gosselin (1855–1935) – Better
known by the pseudonym "G. Lenotre".
Albert Sorel (1842–1906) – Diplomatic
historian; L'Europe et la Révolution française
(8 volumes, 1895–1904); introductory section
of this work translated as Europe under the
Old Regime (1947).
Edgar Quinet (1803–1875) – Late Romantic
anti-Catholic nationalist.
=== Carlyle ===
One of the most famous English works on the
Revolution remains Thomas Carlyle's three-volume
The French Revolution, A History (1837) [1].
It is a romantic work, both in style and viewpoint.
Passionate in his concern for the poor and
in his interest in the fears and hopes of
revolution, he (while reasonably historically
accurate) is often more concerned with conveying
his impression of the hopes and aspirations
of people (and his opposition to ossified
ideology—"formulas" or "Isms"—as he called
them) than with strict adherence to fact.
The undoubted passion and intensity of the
text may also be due to the famous incident
where he sent the completed draft of the first
volume to John Stuart Mill for comment, only
for Mill's maid to accidentally burn the volume
to ashes, forcing Carlyle to start from scratch.
He wrote to Ralph Waldo Emerson that the writing
of the book was the "dreadfulest labor [he]
ever undertook".
=== Anarchists ===
In 1909, Peter Kropotkin, a Russian anarchist,
published The Great French Revolution, which
attempts to round out the political approach
with the perspective and contribution to the
Revolution of the common man.
== Aulard and academic studies ==
Alphonse Aulard (1849–1928) was the first
professional historian of the Revolution;
he promoted graduate studies, scholarly editions,
and learned journals.
His appointment to the Sorbonne was promoted
and funded by Republicans in the national
and Paris governments, but he was not himself
involved in party politics.
He promoted a republican, bourgeois, and anticlerical
view of the revolution.
From 1886 he taught at the Sorbonne, trained
advanced students, founded the Société de
l'Histoire de la Révolution, and edited the
scholarly journal La Révolution française.
He assembled and published many key primary
sources.
He professionalized scholarship in the field,
moving away from the literary multi-volume
studies aimed at an upscale general public,
promoting special political ideals, that had
characterized writing on the Revolution before
the 1880s.
Instead his work was aimed at fellow scholars
and researchers.
His broad interpretation argued:
From the social point of view, the Revolution
consisted in the suppression of what was called
the feudal system, in the emancipation of
the individual, in greater division of landed
property, the abolition of the privileges
of noble birth, the establishment of equality,
the simplification of life....
The French Revolution differed from other
revolutions in being not merely national,
for it aimed at benefiting all humanity."Aulard's
historiography was based on positivism.
The assumption was that methodology was all-important
and the historian's duty was to present in
chronological order the duly verified facts,
to analyze relations between facts, and provide
the most likely interpretation.
Full documentation based on research in the
primary sources was essential.
He took the lead in training advanced students
in the proper use and analysis of primary
sources.
Aulard's famous four volume history of the
Revolution focused on technical issues.Aulard's
books favored the study of parliamentary debates,
not action in the street; institutions, not
insurrections.
He emphasized public opinion, elections, parties,
parliamentary majorities, and legislation.
He recognized the complications that prevented
the Revolution from fulfilling all its ideal
promises – as when the legislators of 1793
made suffrage universal for all French men,
but also established the dictatorship of the
Terror.
== The Marxist/Classic interpretation ==
The dominating approach to the French Revolution
in historical scholarship in the first half
of the 20th century was the Marxist, or Classic,
approach.
This view sees the French Revolution as an
essentially 'bourgeois' revolution, marked
by class struggle and resulting in a victory
of the bourgeoisie.
Influenced by socialist politician Jean Jaurès
and historian Albert Mathiez (who broke with
his teacher Aulard regarding class conflict),
historians on the left led by Georges Lefebvre
and Albert Soboul developed this view.
Lefebvre was inspired by Jaurès and came
to the field from a mildly socialist viewpoint.
His massive and reputation-making thesis,
Les paysans du Nord (1924), was an account
of the Revolution among provincial peasants.
He continued to research along these lines,
publishing The Great Fear of 1789 (1932, first
English translation 1973), about the panic
and violence which spread throughout rural
France in the summer of 1789.
His work largely approaches the Revolution
"from below", favouring explanations in terms
of classes.
His most famous work was Quatre-Vingt-Neuf
(literally Eighty-Nine, published in 1939
and translated into English as The Coming
of the French Revolution, 1947).
This skilfully and persuasively argued work
interprets the Revolution through a Marxist
lens: first there is the "aristocratic revolution"
of the Assembly of Notables and the Paris
Parlement in 1788; then the "bourgeois revolution"
of the Third Estate; the "popular revolution",
symbolised by the fall of the Bastille; and
the "peasant revolution", represented by the
"Great Fear" in the provinces and the burning
of châteaux.
(Alternately, one can view 1788 as the aristocratic
revolution, 1789 the bourgeois revolution,
and 1792/3 the popular revolution).
This interpretation sees a rising capitalist
middle-class overthrow a dying-out feudal
aristocratic ruling caste, and held the field
for almost twenty years.
His major publication was La Révolution française
(1957, translated and published in English
in two volumes, 1962–1967).
This, and particularly his later work on Napoleon
and the Directory, remains highly regarded.Some
other influential French historians of this
period:
Ernest Labrousse (1895–1988) – Performed
extensive economic research on 18th-century
France.
Albert Soboul (1914–1982) – Performed
exhaustive research on the lower classes of
the Revolution; his most famous work is The
Sans-Culottes (1968).
George Rudé (1910–1993) – Another of
Lefebvre's protégés, did further work on
the popular side of the Revolution: The Crowd
in the French Revolution (1959) is one of
his most famous works.
Daniel Guérin (1904–1988) – An anarchist,
he is highly critical of the Jacobins.Some
of the significant conservative French historians
of this period include:
Pierre Gaxotte (1895–1982) – Royalist:
The French Revolution (1928).
Augustin Cochin (1876–1916) – Attributed
the origins of the Revolution to activities
of the intelligentsia.
Albert Sorel (1842–1906) – Diplomatic
historian: Europe et la Révolution française
(eight volumes, 1895–1904); introductory
section of this work translated as Europe
under the Old Regime (1947).The following
five scholars have served as Chairs in the
History of the French Revolution at the Sorbonne:
Hippolyte Taine
F.A.
Aulard – 1891 (for more than thirty years)
Georges Lefebvre – 1937–1959
Albert Soboul – 1967–1982
Michel Vovelle – 1982
== Revisionism and modern work ==
"Revisionism" in this context means the rejection
of the Orthodox/Marxist model of a revolution
carried out by the bourgeoisie against the
aristocracy on the right, with intervention
from the proletariat pushing it to the left.
Shank finds that 21st century trends include
a broader range of topics regarding the effects
of the Revolution, and a more global perspective.
He cites heavy use of the Internet, resources
such as the H-France daily discussion email
list, and use of digital sources to scan through
massive amounts of text.
=== Cobban ===
In 1954, Alfred Cobban used his inaugural
lecture as Professor of French History at
the University of London to attack what he
called the "social interpretation" of the
French Revolution.
The lecture was later published as "The Myth
of the French Revolution", but his seminal
work arguing this point was The Social Interpretation
of the French Revolution (1963).
It was published in French translation only
in 1984.
His main point was that feudalism had long
since disappeared in France; that the Revolution
did not transform French society, and that
it was principally a political revolution,
not a social one as Lefebvre and others insisted.Although
dismissed and attacked by the mainstream journals
at first, Cobban was persistent and determined,
and his approach was soon supported and modified
by a flood of new research both inside and
outside France.
American historian George V. Taylor's research
established that the bourgeoisie of the Third
Estate were not quite the budding capitalists
they were made out to be; indeed Taylor showed
the aristocrats were just as entrepreneurial
if not more so.
John McManners, Jean Egret, Franklin Ford
and others wrote on the divided and complex
situation of the nobility in pre-revolutionary
France.
The most significant opposition to arise in
France was that of Annales historians François
Furet, Denis Richet, and Mona Ozouf.
Furet in the 1960s worked in terms of the
Annales School, which locates the 1789 revolution
in a "long" history of 19th century revolutionary
France.
=== Cobb ===
Another seminal figure in the revisionism
debate is the Francophile Englishman Richard
Cobb, who has produced a number of immensely
detailed studies of both provincial and city
life, avoiding the revisionism debate by "keeping
his nose very close to the ground".
Les armées révolutionnaires (1968, translated
as The People's Armies in 1987) is his most
famous work.
=== Doyle ===
William Doyle, professor at Bristol University,
has published The Origins of the French Revolution
(1988) and a revisionist history, The Oxford
History of the French Revolution (2nd edition
2002).
Another recent American historian working
in this tradition is Keith Michael Baker.
A collection of his essays (Inventing the
French Revolution, 1990) examines the ideological
origins of the Revolution.
=== Tackett ===
Timothy Tackett in particular has changed
approach, preferring archival research to
historiographical dialectics.
He challenges the ideas about nobility and
bourgeoise in Becoming a Revolutionary (2006),
a "collective biography" via letters and diaries
of the third estate deputies of 1789.
His other major work is When the King Took
Flight (2004), a study of the rise of republicanism
and radicalism in the Legislative Assembly
in 1791/2.
Tackett also has several works focusing on
Reign of Terror, The Coming of the Terror
in the French Revolution (2015), and the psychology
behind the paranoia affecting the Committee
of Public Safety during the Terror.
These insights provide a deeper look into
how and why this event happened.
=== Schama ===
Simon Schama's Citizens: A Chronicle of the
French Revolution (1989) is a popular, generally
moderate/conservative history of the period.
It is ostensibly a narrative of "Persons"
and "Events", and more in the tradition of
Carlyle than Tocqueville and Lefebvre.
Its narrative- while massive- focuses on the
most visible leaders of the Revolution, even
through its more "popular" phases.
The book's allegiance is to historical literary
styles rather than schools.
Thus Schama is simultaneously able to deny
the existence of a so-called "bourgeois" revolution,
reserve apotheoses for Robespierre, Louis
XVI, and the sans-culottes alike, and utilize
historical nuance to a degree usually associated
with more liberal historians.
Borrowing from the Romantics for imagery (the
introduction closely follows that of Michelet's
"History..."), "Citizens" also argues against
the Romantics' belief in the necessity of
the Revolution.
Schama concentrates on the early years of
the Revolution, the Republic only taking up
about a fifth of the book.
He also places increased emphasis on insurrectionary
violence in Paris and violence in general,
claiming that it was "not the unfortunate
by-product of revolution, [but] the source
of its energy."
=== 
Hunt and feminism ===
Lynn Hunt, though often characterized as a
feminist interpreter of the Revolution, is
a historian working in the wake of the revisionists.
Her major works include Politics, Culture,
and Class in the French Revolution (1984),
and The Family Romance of the French Revolution
(1992), both interpretative works.
The former focuses on the creation of a new
democratic political culture from scratch,
assigning the Revolution's greatest meaning
here, in a political culture.
In the latter study she works with a somewhat
Freudian interpretation, the political Revolution
as a whole being seen as an enormous dysfunctional
family haunted by patricide: Louis as father,
Marie-Antoinette as mother, and the revolutionaries
as an unruly mob of brothers.
=== Furet ===
François Furet (1927–1997) was the leading
figure in the rejection of the "classic" or
"Marxist" interpretation.
Desan (2000) concluded he "seemed to emerge
the victor from the bicentennial, both in
the media and in historiographic debates."
A disillusioned ex-Communist, he published
his La Révolution Française in 1965–66.
It marked his transition from revolutionary
leftist politics to liberal Left-center position,
and reflected his ties to the social-science-oriented
Annales School.
He then moved to the right, re-examining the
Revolution from the perspective of 20th century
totalitarianism (as exemplified by Hitler
and Stalin).
His Penser la Révolution Française (1978;
translated as Interpreting the French Revolution
1981) was an influential book that led many
intellectuals to reevaluate Communism and
the Revolution as inherently totalitarian
and anti-democratic.
Looking at modern French Communism he stressed
the close resemblance between the 1960s and
1790s, with both favoring the inflexible and
rote ideological discourse in party cells
where decisions were made unanimously in a
manipulated direct democracy.
Furet further suggested that popularity of
the Far Left to many French intellectuals
was itself a result of their commitment to
the ideals of the French Revolution.
Working much of the year at the University
of Chicago after 1979, Furet also rejected
the Annales School, with its emphasis on very
long-term structural factors, and emphasized
intellectual history.
Influenced by Alexis de Tocqueville and Augustin
Cochin, Furet argues that Frenchmen must stop
seeing the revolution as the key to all aspects
of modern French history.
His works include Interpreting the French
Revolution (1981), a historiographical overview
of what has preceded him and A Critical Dictionary
of the French Revolution (1989).
=== Others ===
Some other modern historians include:
Marcel Gauchet (b. 1946) – Author of La
Révolution des droits de l'homme (1989) and
La Révolution des pouvoirs (1995).
Patrice Higonnet – Author of Goodness Beyond
Virtue: Jacobins in the French Revolution
(1998).
Owen Connelly (1924–2011) – The French
Revolution and Napoleonic Era (1993).
Henry Heller – Author of "The Bourgeois
Revolution in France: 1789–1815"; his work
maintains a defence of the Classic (Marxist)
Interpretation of the Revolution.
Olwen Hufton (b. 1938) – Writes on women
in history; her principal work on the Revolution
is Women and the Limits of Citizenship in
the French Revolution (1999).
Dale K. Van Kley (b. 1941) – Historian of
religion, particularly in 18th century France.
Mark Steel (b. 1960) – Columnist and comedian;
authored the humorous and accessible Vive
La Revolution (2003).
== Bibliography: works mentioned ==
Works mentioned, by date of first publication:
Burke, Edmund (1790).
Reflections on the Revolution in France.
Barruel, Augustin (1797).
Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire du Jacobinisme.
Thiers, Adolphe (1823–1827).
Histoire de la Révolution française.
Mignet, François (1824).
Histoire de la Révolution française.
Guizot, François (1830).
Histoire de la civilisation en France.
Carlyle, Thomas (1837).
The French Revolution: A History.
Michelet, Jules (1847–1856).
Histoire de la Révolution française.
Tocqueville, Alexis de (1856).
L'Ancien régime et la révolution.
Usually translated as The Old Regime and the
French Revolution.
Blanc, Louis (1847–1862).
Histoire de la Révolution française.
Taine, Hippolyte (1875–1893).
Origines de la France contemporaine.
Sorel, Albert (19 April 1895).
L'Europe et la Révolution française.
Introductory part translated as Europe under
the Old Regime (1947).
Aulard, François-Alphonse.
The French Revolution, a Political History,
1789–1804 (4 vol. 3rd ed. 1901; English
translation 1910); volume 1 1789–1792 online;
Volume 2 1792–95 online
Webster, Nesta (1919).
The French Revolution – A Study in Democracy.
Mathiez, Albert (1922–27).
La Révolution française.
Lefebvre, Georges (1924).
Les paysans du Nord.
Cochin, Augustin (1925).
Les Sociétés de pensée et la Révolution
en Bretagne.
Gaxotte, Pierre (1928).
La Révolution française.
Lefebvre, Georges (1932).
La Grande Peur de 1789.
Translated as The Great Fear of 1789 (1973).
Lefebvre, Georges (1939).
Quatre-Vingt-Neuf.
Translated as The Coming of the French Revolution
(1947).
Guérin, Daniel (1946).
La lutte de classes sous la Première République.
Lefebvre, Georges (1957).
La Révolution française.
Translated in two volumes: The French Revolution
from its origins to 1793 (1962), and The French
Revolution from 1793 to 1799 (1967).
Rudé, George (1959).
The Crowd in the French Revolution.
Cobban, Alfred (1963).
The Social Interpretation of the French Revolution.
Cambridge.
Cobb, Richard (1968).
Les armées révolutionnaires.
Translated as The People's Armies (1987).
Soboul, Albert (1968).
Les Sans-Culottes.
Translated as The Sans-Culottes (1972).
Furet, François (1978).
Penser la Révolution française.
Gallimard.
Translated as Interpreting the French Revolution
(1981).
Hunt, Lynn (1984).
Politics, Culture, and Class in the French
Revolution.
Doyle, William (1988).
Origins of the French Revolution.
Oxford.
Doyle, William (1989).
The Oxford History of the French Revolution.
Oxford.
Furet, François; Mona Ozouf (1988).
Dictionnaire critique de la Révolution Française.
Translated as A Critical Dictionary of the
French Revolution (1989).
Gauchet, Marcel (1989).
La Révolution des droits de l'homme.
Gallimard.
Schama, Simon (1989).
Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution.
Knopf.
Baker, Keith Michael (1990).
Inventing the French Revolution.
Hunt, Lynn (1992).
The Family Romance of the French Revolution.
Connelly, Owen (1993).
The French Revolution and Napoleonic Era.
Van Kley, Dale K. (1996).
The Religious Origins of the French Revolution.
Hufton, Olwen (1999).
Women and the Limits of Citizenship in the
French Revolution.
Steel, Mark (2003).
Vive La Revolution.
Tackett, Timothy (2004).
When the King Took Flight.
Tackett, Timothy (2006).
Becoming a Revolutionary.
Heller, Henry (2006).
The Bourgeois Revolution in France: 1789–1815.
=== Notes ===
== 
Further reading ==
Andress, David.
"Interpreting the French Revolution," Teaching
History (2013), Issue 150, pp. 28–29, very
short summary
Baker, Keith Michael, and Joseph Zizek, "The
American Historiography of the French Revolution,"
in Imagined Histories: American Historians
Interpret the Past, ed. Anthony Molho and
Gordon S. Wood (Princeton U.P., 1998), pp.
349–92
Bell, David A (Winter 2014).
"Questioning the Global Turn: The Case of
the French Revolution".
French Historical Studies.
37 (1): 1–24.
doi:10.1215/00161071-2376501.
Bell, David A (2004).
"Class, consciousness, and the fall of the
bourgeois revolution".
Critical Review.
16 (2–3): 323–51.
doi:10.1080/08913810408443613.
Brinton, Crane.
A Decade of Revolution: 1789–1799 (2nd ed.
1963) pp. 293–302
De la Croix de Castries, René (1983).
Monsieur Thiers.
Librarie Academique Perrin.
ISBN 2-262-00299-1.
Cavanaugh, Gerald J (1972).
"The Present State of French Revolutionary
Historiography: Alfred Cobban and Beyond".
French Historical Studies.
7 (4): 587–606.
doi:10.2307/286200.
JSTOR 286200.
Censer, Jack (1999).
"Social Twists and Linguistic Turns: Revolutionary
Historiography a Decade after the Bicentennial".
French Historical Studies.
22: 139–67.
doi:10.2307/286705.
Censer, Jack (1987).
"The Coming of a New Interpretation of the
French Revolution".
Journal of Social History.
21: 295–309.
doi:10.1353/jsh/21.2.295.
JSTOR 3788145.
Cobban, Alfred.
The social interpretation of the French Revolution
(1964).
Cambridge university press, 1999.; rejects
Marxist models
Conner, Susan P. "In the Shadow of the Guillotine
and in the Margins of History: English-Speaking
Authors View Women in the French Revolution,"
Journal of Women's History Volume 1, Number
3, 1990, pp. 244–60 in Project MUSE
Cox, Marvin R. "Tocqueville's Bourgeois Revolution."
Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques
(1993): 279–307. in JSTOR
Cox, Marvin R. "Furet, Cobban and Marx: The
Revision of the" Orthodoxy" Revisited."
Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques
(2001): 49–77. in JSTOR
Davies, Peter.
The Debate on the French Revolution (Manchester
U.P. 2006) 210 pp.
Basic survey of the historiography
Desan, Suzanne.
"What's after Political Culture?
Recent French Revolutionary Historiography,"
French Historical Studies, (2000) 23#1 pp.
163–96 in Project MUSE
Doyle, William.
Origins of the French Revolution (3rd ed.
2001) excerpt and text search pp. 1–40
Dunne, John.
"Fifty Years of Rewriting the French Revolution:
Signposts Main Landmarks and Current Directions
in the Historiographical Debate," History
Review.
(1998) pp. 8ff. online edition
Ellis, Geoffrey.
"The'Marxist Interpretation'of the French
Revolution."
English Historical Review (1978): 353–76.
in JSTOR
Farmer, Paul.
France Reviews its Revolutionary Origins (1944)
Friguglietti, James, and Barry Rothaus, "Interpreting
vs. Understanding the Revolution: François
Furet and Albert Soboul," Consortium on Revolutionary
Europe 1750–1850: Proceedings, 1987 (1987)
Vol. 17, pp. 23–36
Furet, François and Mona Ozouf, eds.
A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution
(1989), 1120pp; long essays by scholars; strong
on history of ideas and historiography (esp
pp. 881–1034) excerpt and text search; 17
essays on leading historians, pp. 881–1032
Furet, François.
Interpreting the French revolution (1981).
Germani, Ian, and Robin Swayles.
Symbols, myths and images of the French Revolution.
University of Regina Publications.
1998.
ISBN 978-0-88977-108-6
Gershoy, Leo.
The 
French Revolution and Napoleon (2nd ed. 1964),
scholarly survey
Geyl, Pieter.
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Adolphe Thiers ou De la nécessité en politique.
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Hanson, Paul R. Contesting the French Revolution
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Heller, Henry.
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Hobsbawm, Eric J. Echoes of the Marseillaise:
two centuries look back on the French Revolution
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Marxist
Israel, Jonathan.
Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History
of the French Revolution from The Rights of
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Kafker, Frank A. and James M. Laux, eds.
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Kaplan, Steven Laurence.
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Kaplan, Steven Laurence.
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re 200th anniversary excerpt and text search
Kates, Gary, ed.
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New Controversies (2nd ed. 2005) excerpt and
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Langlois, Claude.
"Furet's Revolution," French Historical Studies,
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Lewis, Gwynne.
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Lyons, Martyn.
Napoleon Bonaparte and the legacy of the French
Revolution (Macmillan, 1994)
McManners, J. "The Historiography of the French
Revolution," in A. Goodwin, editor, The New
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McPhee, Peter, ed. (2012).
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Maza, Sarah.
"Politics, Culture, and the Origins of the
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Root, Hilton L. "The Case Against George Lefebvre's
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Rigney, Ann.
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Alphonse de Lamartine, Jules Michelet and
Louis Blanc.
Scott, Samuel F. and Barry Rothaus, eds.
Historical Dictionary of the French Revolution,
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Scott, Michael; Christofferson (1999).
"An Antitotalitarian History of the French
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French Historical Studies.
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Skocpol, Theda.
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sociological approach
Sole, Jacques.
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Spang, Rebecca L (2003).
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