THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Now in its second edition, The French Revolution: Faith, Desire, and Politics has been updated to include a discussion about how the actions by soldiers and citizen-soldiers shaped the course of the Revolution, as well as the daily lives and concerns of everyday French people.

Throughout the study, Shusterman highlights the crucial role that religion and sexuality played in determining the shape of the Revolution and examines key themes such as: the impact of the crown’s war debts on the fall of the Old Regime, the organization of citizen militias in 1789, and their eventual transformation into France’s National Guard. This edition has been revised to include a fresh analysis of classic nineteenth-century accounts of the Revolution, including those by Jules Michelet, Jean Jaurès, and Edgar Quinet. It also explores the lives of the people who lived through the French Revolution and uncovers the messages about gender, sex, religion, and faith which surrounded them, concerns which did not exist outside of the events of the Revolution.

With a brief chronology of the Revolution and a guide to further reading, this book is an invaluable resource for students of the French Revolution, women and gender, and the history of Catholicism.

Noah Shusterman teaches at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His works include Religion and the Politics of the Time: Holidays from Louis XVI to Napoleon (2010) and Armed Citizens: The Road from Ancient Rome to the Second Amendment (2020).