Why read Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution?

Book cover of Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution

Book description

When this book was published in 1984, it reframed the debate on the French Revolution, shifting the discussion from the Revolution's role in wider, extrinsic processes (such as modernization, capitalist development, and the rise of twentieth-century totalitarian regimes) to its central political significance: the discovery of the potential of political…

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European history

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Jeff Horn

Author

This book made me want to study with Lynn Hunt.

Divided into “The Poetics of Power” and “The Sociology of Politics,” the better known first half explores rhetoric, symbolic forms of political practice, and imagery in novel ways that have influenced both my scholarship and my teaching.

But I was even more struck by the second part where Hunt considered the backgrounds, age, occupations, and experience of Revolutionary political actors in four French cities as a way to understand the political geography of the Revolution, networks, culture brokers, and the emergence of a new political class.

This approach shaped my…

From Jeff's list on the terror in the French Revolution.

Jeremy D. Popkin

Author

A classic example of “the new cultural history,” Lynn Hunt’s short book transformed the way historians look at the French Revolution and has also influenced scholars working on many other subjects. In our age of “culture wars,” Hunt’s demonstration of how slogans, visual images, and even clothing became powerful forces in politics has a relevance that goes beyond the period of the French Revolution.

From Jeremy's list on the French Revolution and the ideals that inspired it.