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'This is a pithy, readable textbook which acts as an excellent introduction to the reams of material which have been written on the terror.' - History, Journal of the Historical Association
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Why has the guillotine become one of the best known symbols of the French Revolution? Why did a revolution, which set out to provide French people with constitutional government and freedom in 1789, end up with a dictatorship that executed tens of thousands of them in 1793-4? Such questions have fascinated observers of the French Revolution since the 1790s and those concerning the Terror have remained the most controversial. This book examines the arguments, analyses the Terror's background and plots a path through the historical minefield that lies between the fall of the Bastille in 1789 and the work of the guillotine during the Terror. It puts the Terror into context and shows how events and ideas interacted to create an event that has haunted the political imagination of Europe ever since.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
There are aspects of history about which any reader simply can't be neutral, like the Holocaust, the U.S.S.R or the crusades. The French Revolution is one such event. Even after two centuries, it divides historians along contemporary political lines between those who see it as generally a positive integer driven by democratic, socialistic and egalitarian ideals and those who regard it as largely negative and inevitably underpinned by totalitarianism, dictatorship and, above all, terror.
Hugh Gough is Emeritus Professor of History at University College, Dublin, and he sides firmly with the positivists. His short book - one hundred and twelve pages - concentrates only on the byproduct of the Revolution: terrorism or, more formally, The Terror. The book is not an original history; it's a summary and digest of previous historians' work. That's not a bad thing in itself since this book seems intended to have been a 'Beginner's Guide to The Terror'.
However, he seems so enthused by the ideals of the Revolution that throughout the book he systematically downplays the arrests without trial, the mob murders and the mass executions that were the fundamental features of The Terror. Every time he lists an atrocity, he attempts to rationalise the actions of its perpetrators as being some form of self-defence against 'counter-revolutionaries', 'emigres' or 'foreign interventionists'. This is a question of interpretation which is, of course, the prerogative of the author. However, at key points there seems to be wilful distortions of objective fact designed to cast a positive - or 'balanced' - gloss on the actions of the revolutionaries.
For example, on 10th August 1792, a mob attacked the Tuileries Palace and seized the king. Gough mentions that "376 of the attackers [were left] dead and wounded" and "800 of the Swiss Guard defenders". This is not quite truthful. While many of the 376 mob casualities were killed, many survived, though wounded; all of the 800 defenders were killed, most of them massacred by the attackers when they had laid down their weapons and surrendered. This was an act of pure terrorism that set the pattern for many more mass murders to come. And yet Professor Gough not only barely mentions this incident but distorts the basic facts of the case. There are many other examples of this kind of special pleading throughout the book.
If a historian writing about the Second World War had tried to downplay the Holocaust as Professor Gough, to my eye, waters down The Terror, there would be outrage. There are many better, more accurate and more honest books about the French Revolution and The Terror than this one. I recommend Simon Schama's 'Citizens - A Chronicle of the French Revolution' and David Andress' 'The Terror - Civil War In The French Revolution'.
Hugh Gough is Emeritus Professor of History at University College, Dublin, and he sides firmly with the positivists. His short book - one hundred and twelve pages - concentrates only on the byproduct of the Revolution: terrorism or, more formally, The Terror. The book is not an original history; it's a summary and digest of previous historians' work. That's not a bad thing in itself since this book seems intended to have been a 'Beginner's Guide to The Terror'.
However, he seems so enthused by the ideals of the Revolution that throughout the book he systematically downplays the arrests without trial, the mob murders and the mass executions that were the fundamental features of The Terror. Every time he lists an atrocity, he attempts to rationalise the actions of its perpetrators as being some form of self-defence against 'counter-revolutionaries', 'emigres' or 'foreign interventionists'. This is a question of interpretation which is, of course, the prerogative of the author. However, at key points there seems to be wilful distortions of objective fact designed to cast a positive - or 'balanced' - gloss on the actions of the revolutionaries.
For example, on 10th August 1792, a mob attacked the Tuileries Palace and seized the king. Gough mentions that "376 of the attackers [were left] dead and wounded" and "800 of the Swiss Guard defenders". This is not quite truthful. While many of the 376 mob casualities were killed, many survived, though wounded; all of the 800 defenders were killed, most of them massacred by the attackers when they had laid down their weapons and surrendered. This was an act of pure terrorism that set the pattern for many more mass murders to come. And yet Professor Gough not only barely mentions this incident but distorts the basic facts of the case. There are many other examples of this kind of special pleading throughout the book.
If a historian writing about the Second World War had tried to downplay the Holocaust as Professor Gough, to my eye, waters down The Terror, there would be outrage. There are many better, more accurate and more honest books about the French Revolution and The Terror than this one. I recommend Simon Schama's 'Citizens - A Chronicle of the French Revolution' and David Andress' 'The Terror - Civil War In The French Revolution'.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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2 reviews
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Student Review
6 Jun 2000
Format:Paperback
This book deals with academic views of the Terror and also gives a chronological account of events, from 1789 to the fall of Robespierre in 1794. The author himself leans towards the more modern revisionist argument, that the Terror was the result of both circumstance and problems within the French political system. Hugh Gough balances the academic arguments and the account of historical events far more successfully than T.C.W. Blanning's "The French Revolution" from the same series, which becomes confused by presentation of conflicting arguments alongside the historical narrative, leaving me unsure which parts are reliable as evidence. That pitfall is avoided in this book.
Overall, the book gives a good, concise picture of events and facilitates further reading on the subject, containing an excellent bibliography, each entry evaluated by a short sentence. As a student I found the book most useful, making much additional reading unnecessary, and it was also quite inexpensive.
I should probably declare that I was lectured on this course by Prof. Hugh Gough in University College Dublin. Even so, for any students studying the French Revolutionary era this book would prove invaluable.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Good case study
30 April 2005
Format:Paperback
This book is very interesting in detailing what went wrong with the revolution and how it turned against itself. The book deals in depth with the origin of the terror and its consequences. It would not be advised as a book for somebody looking for a general history of the revolution due to its narrow scope.
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