The Social Interpretation of the French Revolution / Edition 2

by Alfred Cobban, Gwynne Lewis

Overview

Alfred Cobban's Social Interpretation of the French Revolution is one of the acknowledged classics of postwar historiography. Cobban saw the French Revolution as central to the "grand narrative of modern history," but provided a salutary corrective to prevalent social explanations of its origins and development. A generation later this powerful historical intervention is now reissued with a new introduction by the distinguished scholar Gwynne Lewis. It provides students with both a context for Cobban's arguments, and assesses the course of Revolutionary studies in the wake of The Social Interpretation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521661515
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	05/27/1999
Series:	The Wiles Lectures
Edition description:	Revised Edition
Pages:	230
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.67(d)

Table of Contents

Preface; Introduction Gwynne Lewis; 1. The present state of history; 2. History and sociology; 3. The problem of social history; 4. The meaning of feudalism; 5. The attack on seigneurial rights; 6. Who were the revolutionary bourgeois?; 7. Economic consequences of the Revolution; 8. A bourgeoisie of landowners; 9. Country against town; 10. Social cleavages among the peasantry; 11. The sans-culottes; 12. A revolution of the propertied classes; 13. Poor against rich; 14. Conclusion; Index.

Editorial Reviews

'This is a provocative, lively, and well-written book, and its call for a truly modern sociology of the Revolution can only meet with general approval.' Review of Politics

'This book will be both stimulating and challenging to all those who have so far accepted the orthodox 'bourgeois versus aristocrat' theory.' The Times Educational Supplement

From the Publisher