The French Revolution (1789–1799)

The French Revolution (1789–1799) was a social revolution in France from 1789 to 1799.

• Context:
  • It was a time of Social Upheaval, which included the Reign of Terror (1793-1794).
  • …
• Counter-Example(s):
  • The American Colonial Independence Revolution (1765-1783).
  • U.S. Civil War (1861-1865).
  • Spanish Inquisition (1478-????).
  • die Endlösung der Judenfrage (193?-1945).
  • Rwandan Tutsi Genocide (1994).
• See: Nationalism, Privilege (Social Inequality), Aristocracy, Harvest, Age of Enlightenment.

---

---

References

2014

• (Wikipedia, 2014) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution Retrieved:2014-9-24.
  • The French Revolution () was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France from 1789 to 1799 that profoundly affected French and modern history, marking the decline of powerful monarchies and churches and the rise of democracy and nationalism. Popular resentment of the privileges enjoyed by the clergy and aristocracy grew amidst a financial crisis following two expensive wars and years of bad harvests, motivating demands for change. These were couched in terms of Enlightenment ideals and caused the convocation of the Estates-General in May 1789. The first year of the Revolution saw members of the Third Estate taking control, the assault on the Bastille in July, the passage of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August, and a women's march on Versailles that forced the royal court back to Paris in October. A central event of first stage was the abolition of feudalism and the old rules, taxes, courts and privileges left over from the age of feudalism on 4 August 1789.

    The next stage was dominated by struggles between various liberal assemblies and right-wing supporters of the monarchy intent on thwarting major reforms. A republic was proclaimed in September 1792. In a momentous event that led to international condemnation, King Louis XVI was executed on 21 January 1793.

    External threats closely shaped the course of the Revolution. The Revolutionary Wars beginning in 1792 ultimately featured French victories that facilitated the conquest of the Italian Peninsula, the Low Countries and most territories west of the Rhine – achievements that had eluded previous French governments for centuries. Internally, popular agitation radicalized the Revolution significantly, culminating in the rise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins. The dictatorship imposed by the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror, from 1793 until 1794, caused up to 40,000 deaths inside France, abolished slavery in the colonies, and secured the borders of the new republic from its enemies. The Reign of Terror ended with the overthrow and execution of Robespierre and the other leading Jacobins in the Thermidorian Reaction. The Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795 and held power until 1799. In that year, conventionally seen as the conclusion of the Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte overthrew the Directory in the coup of 18 Brumaire and established the Consulate. The First Empire under Napoleon emerged in 1804 and spread French revolutionary principles all over Europe during the Napoleonic Wars. The First Empire was militarily defeated by an anti-Napoleonic coalition that in 1815 brought about the restoration of the Bourbons, albeit under a constitutional monarchy, and the reversion to France's traditional frontiers. The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution. French society itself underwent a transformation as feudal, aristocratic, and religious privileges disappeared and old ideas about tradition and hierarchy were abruptly overthrown under the mantra of “Liberté, égalité, fraternité”. Globally, the Revolution accelerated the rise of republics and democracies, the spread of liberalism, nationalism, socialism and secularism, the development of modern political ideologies, and the practice of total war. Some of its central documents, like the Declaration of the Rights of Man, expanded the arena of human rights to include women and slaves.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_American_wars_of_independence#French_Revolution
  • The French Revolution (1789–1799) started during the storming of the Bastille, and was a period of political and social upheaval in the political history of France and Europe as a whole, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, underwent radical change to forms based on Enlightenment principles of democracy, citizenship, and inalienable rights. These changes were accompanied by violent turmoil, including executions and repression during the Reign of Terror, and warfare involving every other major European power.

• (Fukuyama, 2014a) ⇒ Francis Fukuyama. (2014). “Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy." Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN:9781429944328

1790

• (Burke, 1790) ⇒ Edmund Burke. (1790). “Reflections on the Revolution in France: And on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to That Event. In a Letter Intended to Have Been Sent to a Gentleman in Paris."

1789

• (Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 1789).

---