Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre

How the Radical Enlightenment inspired and shaped the French Revolution

Historians of the French Revolution used to take for granted what was also obvious to its contemporary observers—that the Revolution was shaped by the radical ideas of the Enlightenment. Yet in recent decades, scholars have argued that the Revolution was brought about by social forces, politics, economics, or culture—almost anything but abstract notions like liberty or equality. In Revolutionary Ideas, one of the world's...