THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE BIRTH OF MODERNITY / Vol. 56, No. 1 (Spring 1989)

Ferenc Feher, Guest Editor

Arien Mack, Editor

Table of Contents

Ferenc Feher

Introduction

E.J. Hobsbawm

The Making of a "Bourgeois Revolution"

[reprinted in 70th Anniversary issue, 71:3]

"To entertain any theory about revolution," writes John Dunn, "and it is not even possible to identify just what events do constitute revolutions without assuming some theory about the meaning of revolution-is to assume a political posture....The value-free study of revolutions is a logical impossibility for those who live in the real world."

Immanuel Wallerstein

The French Revolution as a World-Historical Event

This paper analyzes the French Revolution as a significant event in the history of the modern world-system, suggesting that it transformed the "cultural apparatus" of the international system by creating the "ideological transformation of the capitalist world-economy."

Theda Skocpol

Reconsidering the French Revolution in World-Historical Perspective

This paper examines the French Revolution as "a prototype for later social-revolutionary transformations in very different times and places within the modern world." Patterns established by the French Revolution influenced subsequent international and national radical changes.

Charles Tilly

State and Counterrevolution in France

This paper discusses the relationship between the French Revolution and the subsequent development of the French state and considers the role played by revolutionary and Napoleonic France in the transformation of Europe, which included a "series of antibourgeois counterrevolutions."

Patrice Higonnet

Sociability, Social Structure, and the French Revolution

This paper notes the social organization of French society during the Old Regime and evaluates the impact of the Revolution on the restructuring of French social classes, cultural values, and political institutions.

Harvey Mitchell

Alexis de Tocqueville and the Legacy of the French Revolution

This paper discusses French author and diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville's interpretation of the French Revolution in his Ancien Régime et la Révolution (1856), noting his efforts to understand contemporary political events by studying the earlier revolutionary era.

Ferenc Feher

Practical Reason in the Revolution: Kant's Dialog with the French Revolution

This paper considers the possible indirect impact of the ideas of German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) on some of the leaders of the French Revolution. Indicates that various political concepts of Kant were reflected in certain laws and policies in revolutionary France.

Miguel Abensour

Saint-Just and the Problem of Heroism in the French Revolution

This paper evaluates the political philosophy of Louis de Saint-Just (1767-94), one of the leaders of the French Revolution, noting his concept of the revolutionary hero, which he discussed in his various writings.

Gary Kates

Jews into Frenchmen: Nationality and Representation in Revolutionary France

This paper discusses the debates in revolutionary France over the political status of Jews, which touched upon issues of nationality, citizenship, political representation, and the secular nature of the state.

Steven B. Smith

Hegel and the French Revolution: An Epitaph for Republicanism

This paper assesses German philosopher Georg Hegel's interpretation of the French Revolution and its influence on his political theories of individual participation and representative institutions. The author also considers Hegel's concept of the revolutionary hero.

Brian C. J. Singer

Violence in the French Revolution: Forms of Ingestion/Forms of Expulsion

This paper provides a sociological analysis of violence in the French Revolution, noting the varieties of violent behavior, including popular violence and the state's monopolization of the legal use of violence.