In defense of the terror liberty or death in the French Revolution

By:

Wahnichi, Sophie

Material type: Text

TextPublication details: London Verso 2012Description: xxxi,97pISBN:

9781784782023

Subject(s):

Terrorism; France -- History -- Reign of Terror, 1793-1794; France -- History -- Revolution

DDC classification:

944.044WAH

Summary: For two hundred years after the French Revolution, the Republican tradition celebrated the execution of princes and aristocrats, defending the Terror that the Revolution inflicted upon on its enemies. But recent decades have brought a marked change in sensibility. The Revolution is no longer judged in terms of historical necessity but rather by ?timeless? standards of morality. In this succinct essay, Sophie Wahnich explains how, contrary to prevailing interpretations, the institution of Terror sought to put a brake on legitimate popular violence?in Danton?s words, to ?be terrible so as to spare the people the need to be so??and was subsequently subsumed in a logic of war. The Terror was ?a process welded to a regime of popular sovereignty, the only alternatives being to defeat tyranny or die for liberty.?

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Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Status	Barcode
Book	UONGOZI Institute Resources Centre - Dar es Salaam	944.044WAH (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available	007685

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Previous	944.0330DRA The man who outshone the Sun King ambition, triumph and treachery in the reign of Louis XIV	944.040SCU Fatal Purity Robespierre and the French Revolution	944.040SCU Fatal purity Robespierre and the French Revolution	944.044WAH In defense of the terror liberty or death in the French Revolution	944.04BUR The evils of revolution	944.04ISR Revolutionary ideas an intellectual history of the French Revolution	944.0509ENG Napoleon a political life	Next

For two hundred years after the French Revolution, the Republican tradition celebrated the execution of princes and aristocrats, defending the Terror that the Revolution inflicted upon on its enemies. But recent decades have brought a marked change in sensibility. The Revolution is no longer judged in terms of historical necessity but rather by ?timeless? standards of morality. In this succinct essay, Sophie Wahnich explains how, contrary to prevailing interpretations, the institution of Terror sought to put a brake on legitimate popular violence?in Danton?s words, to ?be terrible so as to spare the people the need to be so??and was subsequently subsumed in a logic of war. The Terror was ?a process welded to a regime of popular sovereignty, the only alternatives being to defeat tyranny or die for liberty.?

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