A Cultural History of the French Revolution - Hardcover

Kennedy, Emmet

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300044267 ISBN 13: 9780300044263

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1989

Synopsis

Discusses the effects of the Revolution on French painting, music, fiction, theater, philosophy, science, education, and religion

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Reviews

In this scholarly, ambitious synthesis, Kennedy paints the French Revolution as "a profound cultural event." Readily admitting that this violent political upheaval did not engender many enduring artistic creations, he sees the Revolution as a force of demolition that negated the culture of the old order as its "religion of man" paved the way for secular individualism. Popular French melodramas and "black novels" prefigured, then mirrored, the wickedness of the Reign of Terror. In painting, an "aesthetics of ruin" announced the ancien regime's collapse, and even Jacques-Louis David's classicism brimmed over with angry defiance. A professor of history at George Washington University, Kennedy shows how the Revolution created a cultural vacuum that radical leaders tried to fill with a subsidized press, republican music, secular festivals, didactic theater, a civic religion. Dozens of period engravings and paintings enliven the proceedings.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Each of these books represents a revisionist approach to the French Revolution. Readers familiar with Doyle's works will not be surprised by this new volume, whose early chapters repeat much from his Origins of the French Revolution (2d ed., 1988). In contrast to Marxist historians, Doyle argues that the Revolution did not witness the victory of a capitalist bourgeoisie over a feudal aristocracy. Rather, the Revolution resulted because a financial-political crisis occurred at a time of harvest failure and of declining esteem for the monarchy among the educated elite. According to Doyle, the Revolution brought several beneficial liberal reforms, but at a terrible social and economic cost. Doyle's scholarship and logic are impressive. Nevertheless, two other revisionist histories of the Revolution are preferred. Simon Schama's Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution ( LJ 4/1/89) has greater stylistic flair, and J.F. Bosher's The French Revolution (LJ 10/15/88) more clearly explains how the new interpretation differs from the old. Kennedy's book is revisionism of a different sort. It resembles Mona Ozouf's Festivals and the French Revolution (LJ 5/15/88). Instead of politics and socioeconomic issues, Kennedy concentrates on such topics as mentalities, popular and elite culture, religion, education, art. He gives a lengthy examination of these topics through the century preceding the Revolution, then examines the changes in 1789-99. In general he finds that the Revolution brought disruption and destruction, though many Old Regime cultural structures and attitudes survived. Moreover, the Revolution made some positive contributions, e.g., the establishment of central schools. Kennedy also admires the more individualistic society that slowly emerged. His clear exposition and numerous illustrations should make this appealing to general readers; the impressive scholarship and sound grasp of issueswill impress specialists.
- Thomas J. Schaeper, St. Bonaventure Univ., N.Y.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300044267
• ISBN 13: 9780300044263
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 448