A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution.

François, Furet, Ozouf, Mona

Harvard University Press, 1989 - History - 1063 pages

Two centuries later, the French Revolution--that extraordinary event that founded modern democracy--continues to give rise to a reevaluation of essential questions. The ambition of this magnificent volume is not only to present the reader with the research of a wide range of international scholars on those questions, but also to bring one into the heart of the issues still under lively debate.

Its form is as original as its goal: neither dictionary, in the traditional sense of the word, nor encyclopedia, it is deliberately limited to some ninety-nine entries organized alphabetically by key words and themes under five major headings: events, including the Estates General and the Terror; actors, such as Marie Antoinette, Marat, and Napoleon Bonaparte; institutions and creations, among them Revolutionary Calendar and Suffrage; ideas, covering, for example, Ancien Régime, the American Revolution, and Liberty; and historians and commentators, from Hegel to Tocqueville. In addition, there are synoptic indexes of names and themes that give the reader easy access to the entire volume as well as a key to its profound coherence.

What unifies all the varied topics brought together in this dictionary is their authors' effort to be "critical." As such, the book rejects the dogmatism of closed systems and definitive interpretations. Its aim is less to make a complete inventory of the findings of the history of the French Revolution than to take stock of what remains problematical about those findings; this work thus offers the additional special quality of incorporating the rich historiographical literature unceasingly elaborated since 1789.

With A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution, François Furet and Mona Ozouf invite the reader to recross the first two centuries of French democracy in order to gain a better understanding of the origins of the world in which we live today.

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This is the most expensive book I own and a beauty to flick through. I have only read a few chapters so far but I have enjoyed them all. This is as much a historiography as a history, with reviews of ...

Contents

• Coups dEtat Denis Richet: 11
• Elections Patrice Gueniffey: 44
• Federation Mono Ozouf: 65
• Italian Campaign Denis Richet: 81
• Kings Trial Mona Ozouf: 95
• Night of August 4 Francois Furet: 107
• Revolutionary Journtes Denis Richet: 124
• Terror Franfois Furet: 151
• Vendee Franfois Furet: 165
• ACTORS: 179
• Carnot Patrice Gueniffey: 197
• Groups: 324
• Enrages Denis Richet: 337
• Feuillants Ran Halevi: 343
• Girondins Mona Ozouf: 351
• Hebertists Denis Richet: 363
• Monarchiens Ran Halevi: 370
• Montagnards Mona Ozouf: 380
• Sansculottes Patrice Higonnet: 393
• Thermidorians Bronislaw Baczko: 400
• INSTITUTIONS AND CREATIONS: 432
• Civil Constitution of the Clergy FrancoisFuret: 449
• Clubs and Popular Societies Patrice Gueniffey and Ran Halevi: 458
• Committee of Public Safety Denis Richet: 474
• Departement Mona Ozouf: 494
• Maximum Franfois Furet: 504
• National Properties Louis Bergeron: 511
• Revolutionary Assemblies Denis Richet: 529
• Revolutionary Government Francois Furet: 548
• Suffrage Patrice Gueniffey: 571
• IDEAS: 593
• Aristocracy David D Bien: 616
• Centralization Yann Fauchois: 629
• Democracy Philippe Raynaud: 649
• Equality MonaOzouf: 669
• Feudal System Franfois Furet: 684
• Jacobinism Francois Furet: 704
• Montesquieu Bernard Manin: 728
• Nation Pierre Nora: 742
• Natural Borders Denis Richet: 754
• Public Spirit Mona Ozouf: 771
• Republic Pierre Nora: 792
• Revolution Mona Ozouf: 806
• Rousseau Bernard Manin: 829
• Academic History of the Revolution FrancoisFuret: 881

About the author

François Furet, former president of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, is presently director of the Institut Raymond-Aron in Paris and Professor of History and Social Thought at the University of Chicago.

Bibliographic information

• Title: A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution.
• Editors: François, Furet, Ozouf, Mona
• Contributor: Ozouf, Mona
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1989
• ISBN: 0674177282, 9780674177284
• Length: 1063 pages
• Subjects: History / Europe / France