Type of bind: Paperback
EAN num: 9780020378402
ISBN number: 0020378408
Label: Macmillan Publishing Company
Manufacturer: Macmillan Publishing Company
Printing Date: 1962-04
Publishing house: Macmillan Publishing Company
Sale Popularity Level: 2597262
Studio: Macmillan Publishing Company
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Robespierre embodied the grandest ideas of the French Revolution as well as its most contemptible acts. Though remembered as a ruthless tyrant, he was once acclaimed as the nation's selfless champion of liberty.
Thompson was a leading authority on the history of the French Revolution. He wrote the standard biography of Robespierre as well as The French Revolution. He was a Fellow of the British Academy and Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. Thompson died in 1956.
Using a mixture of chronology and biography, Thompson sheds light on the life of the Revolution's most controversial and unique character. Led by "common hopes and fears," Robespierre was dragged into the bloodshed of the Reign of Terror.
Robespierre had to be persuaded to sign for the death of Louis XVI, signing only in hopes that the death of the king would be the last death of the Revolution. Soon, however, the Girondins had to go and others followed them. Opponents of liberty and the republic as well as conspirators against the common cause were sentenced to death. Robespierre attempted to create a new social order with the Supreme Being at the head and reason as its chief basis. Robespierre's punishment of those who conspired against him, not the Revolution, seemed to be the final straw for the people. Robespierre was arrested, and after shooting himself in the jaw, was sent to the guillotine, forever to be remembered as the "dictator" of the Reign of Terror.
The work presents a well-defined topic that is well supported. This is a scholarly study intended to enlighten readers about the man behind the myth.
Thompson studied Robespierre in depth and shows bias toward him. The work does not put Robespierre on the highest plain, but shows a tendency to defend his actions and present him as a martyr. It seems that the author is attempting to change commonly held views about Robespierre in hopes that he will be remembered as a visionary champion of liberty and not as the man who sent so many to the guillotine.
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