Will I love Twelve Who Ruled?

This is a classic book dealing with the Terror during the 1789 French Revolution.

I like the way it shows how the French revolutionaries quickly resorted to violence. They talked about democracy, equality, and liberty but were quick to deny them to their “enemies,” chief among them other revolutionaries who were too “moderate” or too “extreme.”

In so doing, I like how the book shows how the French revolutionaries established a regime with what a modern observer would recognize as features of a totalitarian dictatorship. 

There is a reason why this book, published during the darkest days of World War Two, is still in print eighty years later. It is a profound study, deeply informed by Palmer’s own experience of living through a time of war, crisis, and fear. It focuses on the twelve men who served on the Committee of Public Safety and together played a leading role in revolutionary government throughout the critical period of the Year II (1793-94).

This was the first book I ever read on the period of existential crisis known as ‘the Terror’, and it helped me make sense… show more.

Palmer’s classic study was written during the darkest days of World War II; it has been in print ever since. The uncertainties of his own circumstances in 1941 gave him an insight into the military crisis and fears of the French revolutionaries who in mid-1793 created a twelve-man Committee of Public Safety to take the emergency measures to save the Revolution and the nation. What from other perspectives has seemed a spiral into “terror” and repression was also for Palmer a series of desperate steps necessary for survival. His mixture of narrative and collective biography remains an engrossing account of… show more.

The most troubling aspect of the French Revolution, for those who identify with its ideals of liberty and equality, is the way a movement for freedom turned into a revolutionary dictatorship that foreshadowed modern totalitarian regimes. American historian R. R. Palmer’s clear and readable account explains the extraordinary circumstances that led to the Terror and why this episode should not discredit the principles of democracy.