Ferenc Feher, Guest Editor
Arien Mack, Editor
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 varities of violent behavior, including popular violence and the state's monopolization of the legal use of violence.