Book cover of Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French Political Culture in the Eighteenth Century

Book description

How did the French Revolution become thinkable? Keith Michael Baker, a leading authority on the ideological origins of the French Revolution, explores this question in his wide-ranging collection of essays. Analyzing the new politics of contestation that transformed the traditional political culture of the Old Regime during its last decades,…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Inventing the French Revolution as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

What makes a revolution thinkable? Looking back, we tend to think we can identify revolutions, pinpoint their causes, and analyze their outcomes.

In this classic account of the years leading up to the French Revolution, Baker traces how revolutionaries were able to imagine a revolution and how they invented the very concept as they went. Even as they were hell-bent on breaking the Old Regime, the French revolutionaries were shaped and limited by it; their thinking was ultimately bounded by the concepts and language available to them going in.

I love this book because it provides a stimulating history of…

From Katlyn's list on revolutionary ideas.

If you love Inventing the French Revolution...

Book cover of The Rosewood Penny

The Rosewood Penny by J.S. Fields,

2023 Queer Indie Award Nominee!

The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.

On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…

Want books like Inventing the French Revolution?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Inventing the French Revolution.

Browse books like Inventing the French Revolution

Book cover of Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution
Book cover of The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787
Book cover of Becoming a Revolutionary: The Deputies of the French National Assembly and the Emergence of a Revolutionary Culture (1789-1790)

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,340

readers submitted
so far, will you?

📚 If you like Inventing the French Revolution, you might also like...

Book cover of Murder, Lies and Chocolate

Murder, Lies and Chocolate by Sally Berneathy,

Book 2, Death by Chocolate series.

Rodney Bradford comes into Lindsay's restaurant, offers to buy her small house for double its value, eats her brownies, and drops dead on the sidewalk in front. Next, her almost-ex-husband offers to sign the divorce papers, but only if she'll give him her small,…

Book cover of Tangle of Time

Tangle of Time by Maureen Thorpe,

A spellbinding journey through time and cultures.

When Annie Thornton, midwife and apprentice witch, falls through time to a 15th-century Yorkshire village with her telepathic cat, Rosamund, she befriends Will and Jack, two soldiers returning from the French Wars. Mistress Meg, Annie’s ancestral aunt living in the 15th century, is…

5 book lists we think you will like!