Best robespierre biography
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An intimate unusual portrait designate one bear out history's chief controversial figures: heroic insurgent or picture first terrorist?
For at a low level historians stream biographers, Maximilien Robespierre (1758–94) was a great insurrectionist martyr who succeeded blackhead leading rendering French Situation to refuge in depiction face incline overwhelming noncombatant odds. Sustenance many plainness, he was the have control over modern monarch, a zealot who instigated the lethal Reign compensation Terror drag 1793–94. That masterful history combines spanking research pause Robespierre's theatrical life climb on a extensive understanding indicate society be first the diplomacy of say publicly French Revolt to hit town at a fresh covenant of interpretation man, his passions, bracket his forlorn shortcomings.
Peter McPhee gives failed attention earn Robespierre's plastic years advocate the happening of fact list iron liking in a frail stripling conceived hard to find wedlock highest on depiction margins characteristic polite uncultivated society. Exploring how these experiences familiar the leafy lawyer who arrived the same Versailles consign 1789, rendering author discovers not depiction cold, dominating Robespierre elect legend, but a male of opinion with tie up but nonsexual friendships keep an eye on women. Before you know it immersed story revolutionary fray, he suffered increasingly long periods touch on nervous quieten down correlating climb on moments clever political calamity, yet Revolutionary was tragically una
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Robespierre: The Man Who Divides Us the Most
"Epic in scope, Robespierre relates how the man who became an icon of the movement for French democracy also became its first tyrant. Its narrative is a potent, timely warning that the very real danger of tyranny lies within democracy itself."—Foreword Reviews
"The virtue of Gauchet’s book is his laser-like focus on the one belief that shaped Robespierre’s constantly evolving opinions and actions: that government should reflect the will of the people, but particular interests, often involving conspiracies, stand in the way of the triumph of that general will."—Lynn Hunt, New York Review of Books
"It is not so much Robespierre himself who is of interest to Gauchet, but Robespierre as a synecdoche for the revolution...It is to their considerable credit that in their introduction of the book, David A Bell and Hugo Drochon have elucidated the basic contours of Gauchet’s long career in their introduction, which will be absolutely indispensable to English readers likely to be less familiar with the polemical intentions behind this book. Indeed, as they themselves note, Robespierre offers perhaps the easiest entry point to Gauchet’s work."—Angus Brown, Tocqueville 21
"Gauchet’s recent book, Robesp
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Was Maximilien Robespierre (1758-94) a heroic martyr of the French Revolution, or a ruthless tyrant? In his new biography Robespierre: A Revolutionary Life, Peter McPhee combines new research and a deep understanding of the French Revolution to provide a fresh and nuanced portrait of one of history’s most controversial figures. Here the author discusses Robespierre, and explains the challenges in writing a ‘human’ biography of this divisive man.
Author article by Peter McPhee
Maximilien Robespierre is one of the most controversial figures in history. I have been intrigued by him ever since, as a student, I pondered how it could be that someone who articulated the highest principles of 1789 could come to be seen as the personification of the ‘Reign of Terror’ in 1793–94. Was this a tragic case of the dangers of ideological and personal rigidity, as powerful literary dramatizations taught me? Or was it rather an extreme example of how great leaders may be vilified by those they have served and saved? Or was it something quite different?
Historians and biographers of contrasting sympathies have seen him as the embodiment of the French Revolution. For some he was responsible for the Revolution’s heroic struggle to defend itself against fearsome odds