Volume 36, Number 6 · April 13, 1989
The Two French Revolutions
By Norman Hampson
Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution
by Simon Schama
Knopf, 948 pp., $29.95
The French Revolution
by George Rudé
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 224 pp., $19.95
In one respect at least the very different books by Simon Schama and George Rudé have something in common: each is based on the reinterpretation of old evidence rather than on new discoveries. They incorporate a kind of tribute to their authors' student days. In Rudé's case this implies very heavy dependence on the French Marxist historian Georges Lefebvre: 'I have followed fairly closely the arguments of G. Lefebvre'; he is 'greatly indebted' to Lefebvre's 'masterly portrayal' of Napoleon; 'the best work on the outbreak of the Revolution is still G. Lefebvre's'; for the social and economic history of the Revolution one should consult 'above all,…the work of Georges Lefebvre.' What influences Simon Schama is not so much a man as a syllabus. As one reads his book one hears the roll call of the old Oxford University 'special subject,' in which the student has to read, among other books, the memoirs of the Marquis de Ferrières, the correspondence between Mirabeau and the Comte de La Marck, the letters exchanged between Barnave and Queen Marie Antoinette, Morse Stephens's selections from the French revolutionary orators.
Review, 4116 words
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