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The Terror - The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France (2006)
Front Cover Book Details
Genre Non-Fiction
Subject Political violence
Publication Date 1/10/2006
Format Hardcover (9.0 x 6.4 mm)
Publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Language English
Extras Dust Jacket; Dust Jacket Cover
Description
For two hundred years, the Terror has haunted the imagination of the West. The descent of the French Revolution from rapturous liberation into an orgy of apparently pointless bloodletting has been the focus of countless reflections on the often malignant nature of humanity and the folly of revolution.
David Andress, a leading historian of the French Revolution, presents a radically different account of the Terror. In a remarkably vivid and page-turning work of history, he transports the reader from the pitched battles on the streets of Paris to the royal family's escape through secret passageways in the Tuileries palace, and across the landscape of the tragic last years of the Revolution. The violence, he shows, was a result of dogmatic and fundamentalist thinking: dreadful decisions were made by groups of people who believed they were still fighting for freedom but whose survival was threatened by famine, external war, and counter-revolutionaries within the fledging new state. Urgent questions emerge from Andress's trenchant reassessment: When is it right to arbitrarily detain those suspected of subversion? When does an earnest patriotism become the rationale for slaughter?

Combining startling narrative power and bold insight, The Terror is written with verve and exceptional pace-it is a superb popular debut from an enormously talented historian.
Personal Details
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Product Details
LoC Classification DC183.5.A53 2006
Dewey 944.04/4
ISBN 0374273413
Edition 1st American ed.
Cover Price $26.00
No. of Pages 456
First Edition No
Rare No