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Jonathan Israel : Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from "The Rights of Man" to Robespierre . (Oxford : Princeton University Press , 2014. Pp. 870.)
Book Reviews
After reading this gargantuan, infuriating, and illuminating book, I came away impressed and intrigued. I was impressed by the sheer chutzpa of the scholar who devotes more than 800 pages to pursue a rather quixotic aim, and by the sheer heft of its erudition. The book comprises twenty-five chapters covering the years 1788 to 1799, and twenty-one black and white images drawn from period engravings and portraits. The sweep is breathtaking, and the argument--that there were essentially three revolutions vying for supremacy--tantalizing. The parties involved include: constitutional monarchists such as Lafayette who advocated moderate Enlightenment ideas; democratic republicans allied to Tom Paine, who fought for "Radical Enlightenment" ideas; and authoritarian populists such as Robespierre, who violently rejected key Enlightenment ideas and should ultimately be seen as counter-Enlightenment figures. Like Marisa Linton's Choosing Terror, Israel shows how the fierce rivalry between these groups shaped the course of the Revolution, to the Terror, and the post-Thermidor reaction.
I remain intrigued by the writer who would devote a significant part of his life to trying to help us, as members of "democratic civilization avowedly based on equality," to "know its origins correctly" (Enlightenment Contested [Oxford University Press, 2006], 60). Indeed, like Ursula Goldenbaum and other reviewers of Israel's trilogy on "Radical Enlightenment," I began Revolutionary Ideas with enthusiasm, and I too applaud Israel's "rejection of the widespread belittling of the Enlightenment as scientistic, as fostering repressive reason, as producing prisons, mad houses, and the guillotine," and agree that "the philosophical and political views of enlightenment authors were closely connected even if not always visible." And yet, like many other reviewers, I found this book overall to be a frustrating read. This has to do in part with the author's Olympian style, but mainly it concerns the breakdown between Israel's stated goals and the methods used to attain them. Sometimes it seems as if the author is willing to look beyond the evidence in order to make his point. Perhaps that is why this is such a long book.
As...