French Revolution historiographical review essay
This historiographical review will be based on your reading of extracts of the following texts which are available in the paper details (attached documents) : Lefebvre, Georges (trans. R.R. Palmer), The Coming of the French Revolution, Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1947: 209-220. Rudé, George, The Crowd in the French Revolution, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958: 1-9; 232-239. Cobban, Alfred, The Social Interpretation of the French Revolution, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964: 162-173.
Hunt, Lynne, Politics, Cutlure and Class in the French Revolution, London: Methuen & Co., 1984: 1-16. Lewis, Gwynne, The French Revolution: Rethinking the Debate, London & New York: Routledge, 1993: 106-113.
The focus of this paper should be the different approaches taken by historians to the interpretation of the French revolution. The chronology, or the events, of the revolution are less important here than an examination of how scholars have written about the revolution, what kinds of aspects of the revolution they emphasize, and what kinds of conclusions they draw about the nature of the revolution.
You are welcome to make reference to scholars who do not feature in the French revolution reading pack, but please pay careful attention to those readings that have been given (Lefebvre, Rude, Cobban, Hunt and Lewis).
Read each of the five texts closely (more than once)
Refer to each of them in your essay
But don’t simply write a separate summary of each text
It is an essay that discusses what and how scholars have written about a subject
It compares and contrasts their projects, arguments, perspectives, narrative and explanatory methods, and critical use of sources.
