Alphonse Aulard (1849-1928) was the first French historian to use nineteenth-century historicist methods in the study of the French Revolution. Pioneered by German historians such as Leopold van Ranke, this approach emphasised empiricism, objectivity and the scientific pursuit of facts, rather than the philosophical and literary concerns that had guided earlier scholars. Aulard's commitment to archival investigation is evidenced by the many edited collections of primary sources that appear in his extensive publication record. In these eight volumes of papers analysing the French Revolution (published 1893-1921), Aulard sought to apply the principles of historicism to reveal the truth and dispel myths. The work draws on earlier journal articles and lectures which Aulard delivered as Professor of the History of the French Revolution at the Sorbonne, a post he had held since 1885. Volume 2 (1898) covers the September Massacres of 1792 and the establishment of the Consulate in 1799.

"In the opening section, the author examines Europe and the world on the eve of the revolution, describing in detail not only the countries which were immediately affected by the cataclysm in France but also those which awakened slowly to the call of liberty. He then presents a vivid narrative of events in France, analyzing the series of revolts--by the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, the towns, and the peasantry--which set in motion the inexorable course of social, economic, and political upheaval. The forces that propelled the revolution, as well as the personalities responsible for day-to-day decisions during this momentous period, are described with great insight."--From publisher.

Following the cataclysmic events of 1789 some of those involved in the Revolution began to take seriously the possibility of a French republic. Various ideas developed about the form this should take and the models on which it could be based, from those of ancient Greece and Rome, to modern republics such as Geneva or the United States of America. However, a small number of thinkers - centred around the radical, Paris-based Cordeliers Club - looked to the writings of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English republicans for guidance about realising ancient republican ideals in the modern world. This book offers an intellectual history of the Club, through a close analysis of texts and the relationships between their authors. Its main focus is on individual club members and their translations of and borrowings from the works of such thinkers as Marchamont Nedham, James Harrington, Algernon Sidney and Thomas Gordon: the author shows how the Cordeliers adapted and developed those ideas so as to make them serve contemporary circumstances and concerns, and demonstrates that even after the establishment of a French republic in 1792, members of the Cordeliers Club continued to make use of English republican ideas in order to respond to key constitutional and political questions. Rachel Hammersley is Senior Lecturer in History at Newcastle University.

No detailed description available for "The journal des hommes libres de tous les pays 1792-1800".

Laura Mason examines the shifting fortunes of singing as a political gesture to highlight the importance of popular culture to revolutionary politics. Arguing that scholars have overstated the uniformity of revolutionary political culture, Mason uses songwriting and singing practices to reveal its diverse nature. Song performances in the streets, theaters, and clubs of Paris showed how popular culture was invested with new political meaning after 1789, becoming one of the most important means for engaging in revolutionary debate.Throughout the 1790s, French citizens came to recognize the importance of anthems for promoting their interpretations of revolutionary events, and for championing their aspirations for the Revolution. By opening new arenas of cultural activity and demolishing Old Regime aesthetic hierarchies, revolutionaries permitted a larger and infinitely more diverse population to participate in cultural production and exchange, Mason contends. The resulting activism helps explain the urgency with which successive governments sought to impose an official political culture on a heterogeneous and mobilized population. After 1793, song culture was gradually depoliticized as popular classes retreated from public arenas, middle brow culture turned to the strictly entertaining, and official culture became increasingly rigid. At the same time, however, singing practices were invented which formed the foundation for new, activist singing practices in the next century. The legacy of the Revolution, according to Mason, was to bestow new respectability on popular singing, reshaping it from an essentially conservative means of complaint to an instrument of social and political resistance.