MALS

Few events are as significant, or controversial, as the French Revolution of 1789. From one perspective, it marked the sudden, violent end of the ancien régime. Within a few years, revolutionaries eliminated the monarchy, aristocracy, guilds, and a corporate society rooted in legal privileges and traditional hierarchies. They also deprived the Catholic Church of much of its power and confiscated most of its property. In France’s lucrative Caribbean colonies, meanwhile, enslaved people and free people of color set in motion a chain of events that culminated with slavery’s abolition and the ultimate independence of Saint-Domingue (Haïti). From another perspective, the French Revolution can be seen as the beginning of the modern world. Its struggles were replayed across much of the world for a century or more. Concepts such as human rights, nationalism, mass democratic politics, and even our understanding of “Revolution” as a process of radical change can be traced to the events that unfolded in the wake of 1789.
 
This course will examine the history of the French Revolution as well as the ongoing debates surrounding its causes, trajectories, and consequences. Exploring competing Marxist, Revisionist, and Post-Revisionist interpretations of the Revolution we will also contrast the wide range of approaches historians have used to analyze how the Revolution happened and why it followed the course that it did.