Table of Contents

*1. Events * Chouannerie / Francois Furet * Coups d'Etat / Denis Richet * De-Christianization / Mona Ozouf * Elections / Patrice Gueniffey * Estates General / Ran Halevi * Federalism / Mona Ozouf * Federation / Mona Ozouf * Great Fear / Jacques Revel * Italian Campaign / Denis Richet * King's Trial / Mona Ozouf * Night of August 4 / Francois Furet * The Revolution and Europe / Alan Forrest * Revolutionary Journees / Denis Richet * Terror / Francois Furet * Treaties of Basel and The Hague / Denis Richet * Varennes / Mona Ozouf * Vendee / Francois Furet *2. Actors * Individuals * Babeuf / Francois Furet * Barnave / Francois Furet * Carnot / Patrice Gueniffey * Condorcet / Keith M. Baker * Danton / Mona Ozouf * Lafayette / Patrice Gueniffey * Louis XVI / Francois Furet * Marat / Mona Ozouf * Marie Antoinette / Jacques Revel * Mirabeau / Francois Furet * Napoleon Bonaparte / Francois Furet * Necker / Marcel Gauchet * Robespierre / Patrice Gueniffey * Sieyes / Keith M. Baker * Groups * Emigres / Massimo Boffa * Enrages / Denis Richet * Feuillants / Ran Halevi * Girondins / Mona Ozouf * Hebertists / Denis Richet * Monarchiens / Ran Halevi * Montagnards / Mona Ozouf * Sans-culottes / Patrice Higonnet * Thermidorians / Bronislaw Baczko *3. Institutions and Creations * Army / Alan Forrest * Assignats / Michel Bruguiere * Civil Code / Joseph Goy * Civil Constitution of the Clergy / Francois Furet * Clubs and Popular Societies / Patrice Gueniffey and Ran Halevi * Committee of Public Safety / Denis Richet * Constitution / Keith M. Baker * Departement / Mona Ozouf *Maximum / Francois Furet * National Properties / Louis Bergeron * Paris Commune / Patrice Gueniffey * Revolutionary Assemblies / Denis Richet * Revolutionary Calendar / Mona Ozouf * Revolutionary Government / Francois Furet * Revolutionary Religion / Mona Ozouf * Suffrage / Patrice Gueniffey * Taxes / Gail Bossenga *4. Ideas * American Revolution / Philippe Raynaud * Ancien Regime / Francois Furet * Aristocracy / David D. Bien * Centralization / Yann Fauchois * Counterrevolution / Massimo Boffia * Democracy / Philippe Raynaud * Enlightenment / Bronislaw Baczko * Equality / Mona Ozouf * Feudal System / Francois Furet * Fraternity / Mona Ozouf * Jacobinism / Francois Furet * Liberty / Mona Ozouf * Montesquieu / Bernard Manin * Nation / Pierre Nora * Natural Borders / Denis Richet * Physiocrats / Pierre Rosanvallon * Public Spirit / Mona Ozouf * Regeneration / Mona Ozouf * Republic / Pierre Nora * Revolution / Mona Ozouf * Rights of Man / Marcel Gauchet * Rousseau / Bernard Manin * Sovereignty / Keith M. Baker * Vandalism / Bronislaw Baczko * Voltaire / Mona Ozouf *5. Historians and Commentators * Academic History of the Revolution / Francois Furet * Blanc / Francois Furet * Buchez / Francois Furet * Burke / Gerard Gengembre * Constant / Marcel Gauchet * Fichte / Luc Ferry * Guizot / Pierre Rosanvallon * Hegel / Luc Ferry * Jaures / Mona Ozouf * Kant / Luc Ferry * Maistre / Massimo Boffa * Marx / Francois Furet * Michelet / Francois Furet * Quinet / Francois Furet * Stael / Marcel Gauchet * Thine / Mona Ozouf * Tocqueville / Francois Furet * Contributors * Name Index * Subject Index * Alphabetical List of Articles

Promotional Information

A spectacular collection of essays covering virtually every aspect of the French Revolution, written by the most powerful minds currently working on its history. As a whole, the book provides a stunning vindication of the centrality of politics to the lasting significance of the event. Some of the essays--Furet on Quinet, Higonnet on the Sans-culottes, Ozouf on Revolutionary Religion--are miniature masterpieces. The bicentennial is unlikely to produce any other work that serves up so rich and nourishing an intellectual feast. -- Simon Schama, Harvard University This Dictionary represents what I would judge to be one of the most comprehensive statements yet of the new historiography, against Annales; and in so doing, it represents what I would also judge to be one of the clearest interpretations of a renewal of liberal thinking in France which in its distinctiveness, its break from standing conceptions, will be of general interest to all but the most parochial of Anglo-Americans. -- Geoffrey Hawthorn, Cambridge University

About the Author

François Furet, former president of the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, is presently director of the Institut Raymond-Aron in Paris and Professor of History and Social Thought at the University of Chicago. Mona Ozouf is Director of Research at the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris.

Reviews

It was a splendid idea to compile a critical dictionary of the French Revolution, and the idea has been splendidly executed… A great work.
*New York Review of Books*

A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution is really a manifesto representing the views of François Furet, who is now the most influential historian of the French Revolution in the world… Mr. Furet and his collaborators have revived interest in the philosophical problems of modern democracy and shown the importance of the French Revolution in establishing the limits of modern political debate.
*New York Times Book Review*

Not the least merit of Furet and Ozouf’s spectacular Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution is to take declared meaning at face value; to restore, in fact, full historical autonomy to the conflict of ideas. Those not within the guild of self-described ‘professional historians’ may be amazed to hear that such conflicts have ever not been taken seriously in their own right. But it may well have taken this monumental work…to reinstate their full causal power. In the Dictionary, in particular, the play of debate and its intersection with the combat of personalities and the shaping of institutions is given primary significance. The great moments of the French Revolution are rescued from compression into the social structure or burial beneath symbolic bricolage… No praise can really be too high for what this work represents: spectacular scholarship, consistently gripping writing, and intellectual penetration… [It] adds up to a coherent vision of the Revolution (all the more remarkable for being written by more than 20 hands). It is certainly the most enduring book to be published in the bicentennial year.
*New Republic*

In all respects, this Dictionary of more than a thousand pages is a monument of scholarship, and an object of elegant quality, served by original and suggestive illustrations and by a rare quality of writing.
*Libération*

A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution has already been hailed as the literary event of the bicentennial… This success has come from the originality of its format. In effect, the entire team of historians, led by François Furet and Mona Ozouf, has broken with the traditional forms: chronological narratives, monographs, biographies…in order to adopt a new style that reconciles these diverse approaches. The work is erudite but unfolds like a historical novel. It is enormous—a thousand pages—but reads like a magazine with ten-page articles illustrating the one hundred ‘key words’ of the Revolution.
*Le Nouvel Observateur*

This Dictionary represents what I would judge to be one of the most comprehensive statements yet of the new historiography, against Annales; and in so doing, it represents what I would also judge to be one of the clearest interpretations of a renewal of liberal thinking in France which in its distinctiveness, its break from standing conceptions, will be of general interest to all but the most parochial of Anglo-Americans.
*Geoffrey Hawthorn, Cambridge University*

A spectacular collection of essays covering virtually every aspect of the French Revolution, written by the most powerful minds currently working on its history. As a whole, the book provides a stunning vindication of the centrality of politics to the lasting significance of the event. Some of the essays—Furet on Quinet, Higonnet on the Sans-culottes, Ozouf on Revolutionary Religion—are miniature masterpieces. The bicentennial is unlikely to produce any other work that serves up so rich and nourishing an intellectual feast.
*Simon Schama, Harvard University*