Farewell, Revolution: Disputed Legacies, France, 1789/1989 - Hardcover

Kaplan, Steven Laurence

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080143145X ISBN 13: 9780801431456

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 1995

Synopsis

Steven Laurence Kaplan reconstructs and analyzes the loud and bitter arguments over the meaning of the French Revolution which have consumed French intellectuals in recent years. Kaplan recounts the contemporary debates over the meaning of the Revolution, tracing the impact of the historians' bitter quarrel, from Parisian academic circles to the public arenas of the bicentennial celebration. He considers the roles played in those arguments by three of France's most influential historians: François Furet, Pierre Chaunu, and Michel Vovelle.

About this title

About the Author

Steven Laurence Kaplan is Goldwin Smith Professor of History at Cornell University.

From the Back Cover

In 1993, Editions Fayard published Steven Laurence Kaplan's controversial history of the bicentennial commemoration of the French Revolution. Here available in English is one of the most polemical parts of that work, Kaplan's account of the contemporary debates over the meaning of the Revolution. Farewell, Revolution: The Historians' Feud, France, 1789/1989 traces the impact of the historians' bitter quarrel, from Parisian academic circles to the public arenas of the bicentennial celebration. In the complementary work, Farewell, Revolution: Disputed Legacies, France, 1789/1989, Kaplan chronicles both the ceremonies and the controversies that marked the bicentennial. The present volume considers in intimate detail the roles played in those arguments by three of France's most influential historians: Francois Furet, Pierre Chaunu, and Michel Vovelle. The apparent "king" of the bicentennial, Furet attempted to set and enforce the terms of the debate. Chaunu was the prominent spokesman of those who condemned the Revolution as the wellspring of all that is decadent in modern French culture. While officially entrusted with overseeing the historical accuracy of the commemoration, Vovelle attempted to rally a broad-based coalition against Chaunu and the conservatives. As he reenacts the feud, Kaplan invites a reassessment of the relationship between the writing of history and the practice of politics. His book suggests that the charged relationship between history and politics that enlivened the bicentennial may be the Revolution's most enduring legacy.

Reviews

Adieu 89, published in France in 1993, is the French version of this volume by Kaplan (history, Cornell), who has other books about 18th-century France to his credit (Provisioning Paris: Merchants and Millers in the Grain and Flour Trade During the Eighteenth Century, Cornell Univ. Pr. 1984). This volume is written in four separate sections, or books, each built around a central organizing theme. Book 1 is an excellent historiographical explanation of the dominant views of the legacy of the French Revolution. Book 2 views the production of the bicentennial celebration from the center, and Book 3 compares the center to the periphery. Book 4 deals with the commemoration in Paris. This work is very technical and is recommended only for academic libraries.?Harry Willems, Kansas Lib. System, Iola
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080143145X
• ISBN 13: 9780801431456
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 234