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The cover of Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution

Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution

Simon Schama

What turned a hopeful movement for liberty in France into a machine of terror that consumed its own people?

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At a glance

Author
Simon Schama

Why read it

  • You will see how a mild, dutiful person who only follows orders can become an instrument of mass killing
  • You will notice how people who share in a crime are quick to pin it on one figure
  • You will learn how a frightened country greeted the end of the Terror with genuine relief, and why that relief was also convenient

Who it is for

  • A manager watching a reform effort turn harsh
  • A student of politics who wants revolutions explained through people
  • Someone who likes history told through vivid individual lives

Contents

  1. PART ONE
  2. Alterations
  3. THE FRANCE OF LOUIS XVI
  4. 1 New Men
  5. 2 Blue Horizons, Red Ink
  6. 3 Absolutism Attacked
  7. 4 The Cultural Construction of a Citizen
  8. 5 The Costs of Modernity
  9. PART TWO
  10. Expectations
  11. 6 Body Politics
  12. 7 Suicides
  13. 1787–1788
  14. 8 Grievances
  15. Autumn 1788 – Spring 1789
  16. 9 Improvising a Nation
  17. 10 Bastille
  18. July 1789
  19. PART THREE
  20. Choices
  21. 11 Reason and Unreason
  22. July–November 1789
  23. 12 Acts of Faith
  24. October 1789 – July 1790
  25. 13 Departures
  26. August 1790 – July 1791
  27. 14 “Marseillaise”
  28. September 1791–August 1792
  29. 15 Impure Blood
  30. August 1792–January 1793
  31. PART FOUR
  32. Virtue and Death
  33. 16 Enemies of the People?
  34. Winter–Spring 1793
  35. 17 “Terror Is the Order of the Day”
  36. June 1793 – Frimaire An II (December 1793)
  37. 18 The Politics of Turpitude
  38. 19 Chiliasm
  39. April–July 1794
  40. Epilogue

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