The French Revolution: from Enlightenment to tyranny
IAN DAVIDSON
Ian Davidson, a former Financial Times Paris correspondent, has written a readable account of the French Revolution which, though brief, is pretty comprehensive. It tells the dramatic story from the summoning of the Etats généraux to the fall of Robespierre. Drawing on the work of the principal French historians of 1789 – above all Michelet, de Tocqueville, Mathiez, Soboul, Furet and Tulard – Davidson avoids being drawn into taking political sides over a series of events which shook and shaped the world. He sets out what happened with clarity and the narrative stylishness of a good journalist, as idealism and a demand for the rule of law slid into bloody violence. For those who want to know what happens next in French history, another former journalist, Jonathan Fenby, has written an admirable history of modern France from Waterloo to the present day. To fill the gap between Davidson and Fenby all you need is a good biography of Napoleon.
I opened Davidson’s book having read little or nothing about the Revolution since my days studying modern history at Oxford 50 years ago. In our first term, we studied Alexis de Tocqueville’s survey of the causes of the revolution, L’Ancien Régime. This great book has become a best-seller in China.
