Political Identity and the Jacobin Leaders
1: The Eighteenth-Century Man of Virtue
2: 'How the Face of Things Has Changed!'
3: New Men for New Politics: the First Jacobin Leaders
4: The Ascendancy of the Girondins and the Path to War
5: Choosing Sides: Friends, Factions and Conspirators in the New
Republic
6: A Conspiracy of Girondins
7: Being Cincinnatus: The Jacobins in Power
8: The Enemy Within
9: The Robespierrists and the Republic of Virtue
10: Final Choices: Thermidor
11: Achieving Authenticity
Conclusion
Marisa Linton is a leading historian of the French Revolution. She is currently Reader in History at Kingston University. She has published widely on eighteenth-century France and the French Revolution. She is the author of The Politics of Virtue in Enlightenment France (2001) and the co-editor of Conspiracy in the French Revolution (2007).
Linton's book offers a precious and well-documented reassessment of
the Terror and its nature. Even though Linton tends sometimes to
underestimate political divisions between factions within the
Jacobin club (262), the book is a valuable resource for
understanding the contest which led to the Terror, in particular
the atmosphere of fear and suspicion which increasingly influenced
the political life of the young French Republic.
*Niccolo Valmori, European Review of History24/09/2015*
This excellent study ... is a refreshingly existentialist
interpretation of revolutionary politics, exploring such
politico-philosophical issues as the limits of individual freedom,
the power and fear of choosing sides, the striving for
authenticity, and the dizzying realisation that one's meaning in
the world is often little more than the credibility it carries in
the eyes of others ... an original, superbly researched piece of
work ... It is to be strongly recommended ... for its highly
perceptive and comprehensive understanding of the often neglected
personal dynamics of revolutionary politics.
*David McCallam, English Historical Review*
Linton provides a rich analysis of the complex repercussions of
both contemporary understanding of the concept of virtue and the
revolutionaries' insistence on its central role in political life.
In doing so, she works diligently to explore how these widely-held
views interacted with the day-to-day lived experience of the
Parisian political elite ... The result is a book which gives the
familiar narrative of 'descent' into Terror a distinctive -- and
very human -- register
*Alex Fairfax-Cholmeley, European History Quarterly*
Marisa Linton's new book is in the best traditions of such careful,
detailed, biographically-conscious evaluations.
*Dr Dave Andress, Reviews in History*
Marisa Linton's book covers five years of the revolution and
integrates a great deal of recent research into an interpretation
of the terror which will fascinate the general reader and encourage
specialists to extend research into some of the areas she
covers.
*Hugh Gough, Dublin Review of Books*
Linton manages to provide a very convincing account of her topic of
choice. One of the key strengths of the book is that Linton is
never prescriptive; likewise she presents a balanced account
throughout, weighing the ideological, strategic, emotional and
personal inclinations of the protagonists at every turn.
*Aurelien Mondon, Modern & Contemporary France*
Linton's rigorously researched and documented work renders in
intricate detail the personalities, motives, and interrelationships
of revolutionary figures caught up in the writhing landscape of the
great French political experiment ... Recommended.
*J.I. Donohoe, CHOICE*
Linton's chronological approach allows her to offer many insights
into the politicians' personal experience of the Terror
*Lynn Hunt, French History*
an extremely detailed and illuminating account.
*Aurelien Mondon, Modern and Contemporary France*
Marisa Linton's book has the great advantage of humanising the
principal actors of the Revolution, by restoring their emotions,
their friendships, and their virtues, as well as their anxieties
and enmities. More than this, it puts forward a new reading of the
slide into 'terrorism' produced by the fear that stalked them. Her
compelling narrative is distinguished by fair judgement and subtle
analysis.
*Annie Jourdan, La Vie des Idées*
In this important book, Marisa Linton shows with insight and care
how [Jean-Marie] Rolands self-image as a man of virtue and honesty
was shared among nearly all revolutionary politicians on the
Left.
*Gary Kates, American Historical Review*
Linton's accomplished book highlights important problems of
political authority in an egalitarian age
*Sanja Perovic, French Studies*
In a splendid study of what she calls the 'politicians' Terror',
Marisa Linton provides a convincing analysis of how this tragedy
unfolded, when former friends dispatched each other to the
guillotine as agents of conspiracy and counter-revolution,
destroying a fragile, nascent democracy in the process ... showing
in her study how members of the National Convention came to choose
Terror.
*Malcolm Crook, History*
a richly textured, well-researched, and thought-provoking
account
*Jennifer Heuer, H-France Forum*
Well known to historians for her previous works, Marisa Linton
offers us here a book that is sure to arouse debate. So much the
better and we should thank her for it ... She concludes her fine
book with the call to the judgment of posterity made by those who
knew they were doomed ... all had made "Liberty or Death" their
watchword, and kept faith with that commitment to the end.
*Michel Biard, H-France Forum [translated from French]*
One of the interesting arguments made by this book is to show
precisely how the configuration of what we call the "Terror" came
about as the consequence of a series of gradual and collective
political choices, but equally it was a powerful political weapon
which inevitably ended by burning the hands of all the protagonists
who took hold of it.
*Guillaume Mazeau, H-France Forum [translated from French]*
The book is particularly strong too in its attempts to tease out
networks among politicians, whether they were public, as in the
press or the Jacobin Club, or private as in meetings, dinners or
salons. Such friendships sometimes even pre-dated the Revolution.
She [Linton] goes on to argue that these private networks created a
tension with the ideal of the virtuous patriot because they opened
their participants to allegations of backstairs intrigue, promoting
ambition, and hypocrisy.
*Donald Sutherland, H-France Forum*
Linton has given us a potent account of how individual
revolutionaries faced the Terror ... Linton offers a finely texted
and compelling play-by-play, as figures like Jacques-Pierre
Brissot, Georges Danton, Robespierre, and Jean Tallien wrestle over
each other's fates and the future of France.
*Suzanne Desan, Journal of Interdisciplinary History*
In her valuable and authoritative book on the Terror, Marisa Linton
focuses on why individuals engaged in acts of violence. Her title,
Choosing Terror, encapsulates her interpretation. She reframes her
question to ask why individuals who first chose revolution later
chose Terror.
*Jack R. Censer, Journal of Social History*
[a] particularly original study
*Prof. Jacques Guilhaumou, Révolution Française.net
[translation]*
Linton's work, in eschewing monocausal explanations of the Terror
and highlighting the degree to which it was often the product of
highly personal choices among individual politicians, is by
necessity a complex account, with a large cast of characters and
many narrative threads. As such, it offers readers a fuller
understanding of the dynamics of radicalization and violence than
has previously been understood. Through it, we gain insight into
the emotional experience of the Revolution and the degree to which
its leaders were both ruthless politicians and at the same time
struggling for their survival against enormous odds.
*Sarah Horowitz, Journal of Modern History*
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