French Society and the Revolution

Taken as a whole the essays in this volume illustrate the outstanding contribution made to French Revolutionary scholarship by British and American authors. Professor Johnson has selected essays which cover a wide spectrum of time, place and social class but are vitally concerned to describe and explain the social reality of revolution in its various phases. The essays fall into three main groups; the first sets the scene with studies of the social, economic and intellectual life of pre-Revolutionary France; the second studies the role of fate of certain social groups during the Revolution; and the third examines counter-revolution in two provincial areas. The editor has added an introduction and index, and some minor changes have been made to the essays. Many of these articles are already well known to professional historian and it is hoped that publication in the present form will make them available to a wider audience interested in the social experience of the most dramatic and far reaching of revolution in modern times.