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Original Essays | September 23, 2009

Jonathan Lethem: IMG Stops: On Those Things My New Novel Forgot to Be About, Maybe



For me, there's a weird, unfathomable gulf — I almost wrote gulp — between the completion of a novel and its publication. Some days this duration feels interminable, as though the book has... Continue »
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1 Burnside France- 18th Century and Revolutionary

The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France

by David Andress

The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France Cover

ISBN13: 9780374273415
ISBN10: 0374273413
Condition: Standard
Dustjacket: Standard
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

For two hundred years, the Terror has haunted the imagination of the West. The descent of the French Revolution from rapturous liberation into an orgy of apparently pointless bloodletting has been the focus of countless reflections on the often malignant nature of humanity and the folly of revolution.
 
David Andress, a leading historian of the French Revolution, presents a radically different account of the Terror. In a remarkably vivid and page-turning work of history, he transports the reader from the pitched battles on the streets of Paris to the royal family's escape through secret passageways in the Tuileries palace, and across the landscape of the tragic last years of the Revolution. The violence, he shows, was a result of dogmatic and fundamentalist thinking: dreadful decisions were made by groups of people who believed they were still fighting for freedom but whose survival was threatened by famine, external war, and counter-revolutionaries within the fledging new state. Urgent questions emerge from Andress's trenchant reassessment: When is it right to arbitrarily detain those suspected of subversion? When does an earnest patriotism become the rationale for slaughter?

Combining startling narrative power and bold insight, The Terror is written with verve and exceptional pace-it is a superb popular debut from an enormously talented historian.

Book News Annotation:

A specialist in the French Revolution, Andress (modern European history, U. of Portsmouth) offers a new interpretation of the mass killings that have become the most vivid image of the revolution. The Terror was not an inevitable outcome of revolution, he argues, but was the result of dogmatic and fundamentalist thinking and dreadful decisions by a group of people whose survival was threatened by famine, external war, and counter-revolutionaries. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Synopsis:

In a remarkably vivid and page-turning work of history, the author transports the reader from the pitched battles on the streets of Paris to the royal family's escape through secret passageways in the Tuileries palace, and across the landscape of the tragic last years of the French Revolution.

About the Author

David Andress, a leading historian of the French Revolution, is Principal Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Portsmouth, and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. The Terror is his first book for a general readership.

Product Details

ISBN:
9780374273415
Subtitle:
The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France
Author:
Andress, David
Publisher:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Subject:
Europe - France
Subject:
History
Subject:
Revolutionary
Subject:
Political violence
Subject:
General History
Publication Date:
20060110
Binding:
HC
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
456
Dimensions:
9.30x6.38x1.51 in. 1.70 lbs.

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