Contesting the French Revolution

Paul Hanson is Professor of History at Butler University in Indianapolis. He has taught courses on French history, European history, and Chinese history, and has published numerous books and articles examining the French Revolution, including The Jacobin Republic under Fire, Provincial Politics in the French Revolution and Historical Dictionary of the French Revolution.

• Acknowledgements viiiChronology xIntroduction 11 Origins: Inevitable Revolution or Resolvable Crisis? 112 1789 353 The Declaration of Rights and the Abolition of Feudalism 514 Constitutional Monarchy 705 The Republic 876 Regeneration and Terror 1087 Thermidor and the Directory 1278 Napoleon: Heir to the Revolution? 1439 Revolutionary Violence 15910 Legacy of the Revolution 186Bibliography 198Index 220

“The historiography of the French Revolution is notoriously voluminous. Paul Hanson is one of very few people who can be said to have mastered it.” (Informaworld.com, January 2011) "This book is no neutral survey of historiography, bur an engaged contribution to the debate. Hanson challenges older revisionism by endorsing recent studies that emphasize social conflict as key to the French Revolution, and he contests interpretations of the Terror or of revolutionary violence as the outcomes of revolutionary ideology." (Journal of World History, September 2010)"Recommended [for] Graduate students [and] faculty." (CHOICE, February 2010) Designed as an introduction both to the Revolution and to the historical controversies that surround it, Contesting the French Revolution is an assured, erudite survey of recent scholarship by an accomplished historian of the Revolution. (H-France, April 2010)