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cleheny 's review for:
Liberty or Death: The French Revolution
by Peter McPhee
This is closer to 2.5-2.75 stars. I liked a lot of it:
1. McPhee focuses on the Revolution throughout France, and not simply on Parisian events. This gives a helpful perspective of where the Revolution was welcome and where it was resisted (or, if initially welcomed, where that welcome changed).
2. He gives one of the most coherent explanations of ancien regime finances/economics that I have ever read. I always dread the lead-in chapters of a history of the Revolution because Royalist economic policy was so convoluted and confusing. I'm certainly not a master of the subject now, but I felt as if I finally had a handle on what was so crazy about the system.
3. He tends to focus on themes in each chapter, then sums them up at the end of the chapter, and does follow through with them in later chapters. Sometimes this is a drawback, but it could also be quite helpful. For example, he clearly feels that the move to make the Catholic Church an organ of the state, and require priests to be "constitutional" priests who embrace the Revolution's ideals and reject Catholic hierarchies, was decisive in turning a significant portion of the country against the Revolution. After laying out this theme, he followed up later to talk about the ways that forcing "non-juring" priests (e.g., those priests who wouldn't take the required oath to the constitution) into exile devastated not only the religious life of a lot of the country, with its established rituals and rhythms, but also a key component of welfare to the poor, without a national public welfare program to replace that which was lost.
4. I also appreciated that, in reflecting on the Terror, he (a) laid out the antecedents (the Girondins' push to declare war on Austria and England; the early military struggles; the rebellion in the Vendee) and (b) clearly rejected the idea that Robespierre was solely--or almost solely--responsible for it. I thought he put together a strong thesis that much of the country was okay with the Terror while the military struggled and the internal civil war in the Vendee raged. As the French army began to win and make advances, and the Vendee revolt was subdued, many no longer saw a need for terror; unfortunately for Robespierre, Saint-Just and their ideological companions, they didn't (or couldn't) change their perspective on the necessity of the Terror.
But there are drawbacks that make me hesitant to rate this more highly:
1. McPhee has a tendency to introduce a term of art without defining it. Thus, he begins making frequent references to "deputy/deputies-on-mission," but never explains what that means. I've Googled the term, so I now understand that the phrase refers to members of the Legislative Assembly and National Convention deputed to enforce law and order in the departements or army. He also begins referring to the "Year One/Two/Three," again without explanation. Again, Google helped me to understand that Year One referred to 1792 (though it's not entirely clear if Year One starts on Mar. 21st--the first day of the month of Germinal in the Revolutionary calendar). But I shouldn't have to look this sort of thing up when reading a popular history.
2. As much as I appreciate his focus on the whole of France, and not just Paris, it gets confusing when he refers to specific villages/towns/departementes without more information/context. I don't know where most of these places are or how they are typical/atypical. Along a similar vein, he has a tendency to elucidate his argument by throwing out statistics for specific areas (e.g., "20 priests refused to take the oath") without contextualizing it--for example, what was the total number of priests in the area? how did that compare to areas immediately around it/farther away? Without meaningful context, it just comes across as a bunch of names/numbers.
3. McPhee devotes three chapters to the Terror, which is one of the more dramatic and tragic Revolutionary periods, but the chapters are comparatively dull. I'm not looking for narrative drama ("It's a far, far better thing . . . .") or sensationalism, but it's weird to feel like I have to slog through this period. For example, the trials/executions of the Hebertistes and Dantonists are disposed of briefly, in a couple of paragraphs or so for each. But, these trials indicated that, by this point in the Terror, not even members of the Convention were safe; I didn't get any sense of whether Convention members were afraid for themselves or perfectly find with what was happening.
4. As the history progressed, I found it harder and harder to read a chapter in one sitting. At some point, the detail--in people and place names, in numbers and statistics, in differing ideologies--became overwhelming, and I couldn't take it in except in small doses.
1. McPhee focuses on the Revolution throughout France, and not simply on Parisian events. This gives a helpful perspective of where the Revolution was welcome and where it was resisted (or, if initially welcomed, where that welcome changed).
2. He gives one of the most coherent explanations of ancien regime finances/economics that I have ever read. I always dread the lead-in chapters of a history of the Revolution because Royalist economic policy was so convoluted and confusing. I'm certainly not a master of the subject now, but I felt as if I finally had a handle on what was so crazy about the system.
3. He tends to focus on themes in each chapter, then sums them up at the end of the chapter, and does follow through with them in later chapters. Sometimes this is a drawback, but it could also be quite helpful. For example, he clearly feels that the move to make the Catholic Church an organ of the state, and require priests to be "constitutional" priests who embrace the Revolution's ideals and reject Catholic hierarchies, was decisive in turning a significant portion of the country against the Revolution. After laying out this theme, he followed up later to talk about the ways that forcing "non-juring" priests (e.g., those priests who wouldn't take the required oath to the constitution) into exile devastated not only the religious life of a lot of the country, with its established rituals and rhythms, but also a key component of welfare to the poor, without a national public welfare program to replace that which was lost.
4. I also appreciated that, in reflecting on the Terror, he (a) laid out the antecedents (the Girondins' push to declare war on Austria and England; the early military struggles; the rebellion in the Vendee) and (b) clearly rejected the idea that Robespierre was solely--or almost solely--responsible for it. I thought he put together a strong thesis that much of the country was okay with the Terror while the military struggled and the internal civil war in the Vendee raged. As the French army began to win and make advances, and the Vendee revolt was subdued, many no longer saw a need for terror; unfortunately for Robespierre, Saint-Just and their ideological companions, they didn't (or couldn't) change their perspective on the necessity of the Terror.
But there are drawbacks that make me hesitant to rate this more highly:
1. McPhee has a tendency to introduce a term of art without defining it. Thus, he begins making frequent references to "deputy/deputies-on-mission," but never explains what that means. I've Googled the term, so I now understand that the phrase refers to members of the Legislative Assembly and National Convention deputed to enforce law and order in the departements or army. He also begins referring to the "Year One/Two/Three," again without explanation. Again, Google helped me to understand that Year One referred to 1792 (though it's not entirely clear if Year One starts on Mar. 21st--the first day of the month of Germinal in the Revolutionary calendar). But I shouldn't have to look this sort of thing up when reading a popular history.
2. As much as I appreciate his focus on the whole of France, and not just Paris, it gets confusing when he refers to specific villages/towns/departementes without more information/context. I don't know where most of these places are or how they are typical/atypical. Along a similar vein, he has a tendency to elucidate his argument by throwing out statistics for specific areas (e.g., "20 priests refused to take the oath") without contextualizing it--for example, what was the total number of priests in the area? how did that compare to areas immediately around it/farther away? Without meaningful context, it just comes across as a bunch of names/numbers.
3. McPhee devotes three chapters to the Terror, which is one of the more dramatic and tragic Revolutionary periods, but the chapters are comparatively dull. I'm not looking for narrative drama ("It's a far, far better thing . . . .") or sensationalism, but it's weird to feel like I have to slog through this period. For example, the trials/executions of the Hebertistes and Dantonists are disposed of briefly, in a couple of paragraphs or so for each. But, these trials indicated that, by this point in the Terror, not even members of the Convention were safe; I didn't get any sense of whether Convention members were afraid for themselves or perfectly find with what was happening.
4. As the history progressed, I found it harder and harder to read a chapter in one sitting. At some point, the detail--in people and place names, in numbers and statistics, in differing ideologies--became overwhelming, and I couldn't take it in except in small doses.