France, History Of, France from 1789 to 1815

The best overview of the period is D.M.G. Sutherland, France 1789–1815: Revolution and Counter-Revolution (1985). General surveys of the French Revolution include William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution (1989); and Norman Hampson, A Social History of the French Revolution (1963, reprinted 1982). The origins and the first phase of the Revolution are treated in Michel Vovelle, The Fall of the French Monarchy, 1787–1792 (1984; originally published in French, 1972). The best book on the Terror is still R.R. Palmer, Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution (1941, reissued 1989). Martyn Lyons, France Under the Directory (1975), surveys the Revolution's later phase. François Furet and Mona Ozouf (eds.), A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution (1989; originally published in French, 1988), is an important and original collection of short essays on selected events, actors, institutions, ideas, and historians of the French Revolution. Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (1984), analyzes the imagery and sociology of revolutionary politics. Notable thematic studies include Georges Lefebvre, The Great Fear of 1789: Rural Panic in Revolutionary France (1973, reissued 1989; originally published in French, 1932); P.M. Jones, The Peasantry in the French Revolution (1988); Albert Soboul, The Parisian Sans-culottes and the French Revolution, 1793–4, trans. from French (1964, reprinted 1979); George Rudé, The Crowd in the French Revolution (1959, reprinted 1986); John McManners, The French Revolution and the Church (1969, reprinted 1982); Jean-Paul Bertaud, The Army of the French Revolution (1988; originally published in French, 1979); Emmet Kennedy, A Cultural History of the French Revolution (1989); and Jacques Godechot, The Counter-Revolution: Doctrine and Action, 1789–1804 (1971, reissued 1981; originally published in French, 1961). The international dimension of the Revolution is interpreted in R.R. Palmer, The World of the French Revolution (1971). The best biography of a revolutionary leader is Leo Gershoy, Bertrand Barère: A Reluctant Terrorist (1962). A lively introduction to the Napoleonic era is J. Christopher Herold, The Age of Napoleon (1963, reprinted 1987). Informative volumes on the life and times of Napoleon include Felix Markham, Napoleon (1963); and Jean Tulard, Napoleon: The Myth of the Saviour (1984; originally published in French, 1977). The best volume on the Napoleonic regime in France is Louis Bergeron, France Under Napoleon (1981; originally published in French, 1972). Owen Connelly, Blundering to Glory: Napoleon's Military Campaigns (1987), is a critical and incisive analysis. For the views of historians across the generations, see Pieter Geyl, Napoleon: For and Against (1949, reissued 1976; originally published in Dutch, 1946).