[PDF] The Life And Opinions Of Maximilien Robespierre eBook

Author : David P. Jordan
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 370 pages
File Size : 27,53 MB
Release : 2013-10-16
Category : History
ISBN : 1476725713

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In changing forever the political landscape of the modern world, the French Revolution was driven by a new personality: the confirmed, self-aware revolutionary. Maximilien Robespierre originated the role, inspiring such devoted twentieth-century disciples as Lenin—who deemed Robespierre a Bolshevik avant la lettre. Although he dominated the Committee for Public Safety only during the last year of his life, Robespierre was the Revolution in flesh and blood. He embodies its ideological essence, its unprecedented extremes, its absolutist virtues and vices; he incarnated a new, completely politicized self to lead a new, wholly regenerated society. Yet as historian David P. Jordan observes, Robespierre has remained an enigma. While his revolutionary career embraced the most crucial years of the Revolutions—1789 to 1794—it was little presaged by the unremarkable course of his early life. The Jacobin leader to whom the revolutionary masses clung is thus both as mysterious as his remote provincial past and as awesome as the world-shaking regicide he inspired. Confronted by these extremes, historians have often contented themselves to caricature Robespierre as an antichrist, a bourgeois manipulator of the rabble, or a canny political tactician. Jordan looks to Robespierre’s own self-conception for a true understanding of the man and his Revolution. Indeed, Robespierre wrote about himself often, and at length. Influenced by Enlightenment rationalism and the new literary genre of autobiography, he left behind a voluminous body of speeches, newspaper articles, and pamphlets laced with reflections and revelations about his self-created destiny as living martyr and revolutionary Everyman. From these thoughts and words, Jordan attempts to uncover Robespierre, to reveal what made this unlikely figure—onetime provincial lawyer, small-town académicien, and uninspired versifier—the most important in revolutionary France.

Author : Peter McPhee
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 25,43 MB
Release : 2012-03-13
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0300183674

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For some historians and biographers, Maximilien Robespierre (1758–94) was a great revolutionary martyr who succeeded in leading the French Republic to safety in the face of overwhelming military odds. For many others, he was the first modern dictator, a fanatic who instigated the murderous Reign of Terror in 1793–94. This masterful biography combines new research into Robespierre's dramatic life with a deep understanding of society and the politics of the French Revolution to arrive at a fresh understanding of the man, his passions, and his tragic shortcomings. Peter McPhee gives special attention to Robespierre's formative years and the development of an iron will in a frail boy conceived outside wedlock and on the margins of polite provincial society. Exploring how these experiences formed the young lawyer who arrived in Versailles in 1789, the author discovers not the cold, obsessive Robespierre of legend, but a man of passion with close but platonic friendships with women. Soon immersed in revolutionary conflict, he suffered increasingly lengthy periods of nervous collapse correlating with moments of political crisis, yet Robespierre was tragically unable to step away from the crushing burdens of leadership. Did his ruthless, uncompromising exercise of power reflect a descent into madness in his final year of life? McPhee reevaluates the ideology and reality of "the Terror," what Robespierre intended, and whether it represented an abandonment or a reversal of his early liberalism and sense of justice.

Author : Ruth Scurr
Publisher : Macmillan
Page : 452 pages
File Size : 26,4 MB
Release : 2007-04-17
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780805082616

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Against the dramatic backdrop of the French Revolution, historian Scurr tracks Robespierre's evolution from lawyer to revolutionary leader. This is a fascinating portrait of a man who identified with the Revolution to the point of madness, and in so doing changed the course of history.

Author : George Henry Lewes
Publisher : Forgotten Books
Page : 342 pages
File Size : 35,80 MB
Release : 2016-06-20
Category : History
ISBN : 9781440062292

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Excerpt from The Life of Maximilien Robespierre: With Extracts From His Unpublished Correspondence And as, with all this good-will, I shall have no more fastidious critic than yourself, to you I may offer the explanations which custom insists upon in prefaces. There has hitherto been no biography of Robespierre. Notices in Biographical Dictionaries and in Histories of the French Re volution, are the only records of a career which has left so deep an impression upon men's minds. It seemed, therefore, desirable on many accounts, that the materials for a more complete under standing of this remarkable man, scattered through numerous and not easily accessible volumes, should be brought together, and something like a connected view of his career - his opinions - and his acts be given to the public. The Revolution of February, 1848, by once more bringing Robespierre's name and doctrines into alarming prominence, suggested this undertaking; the time which has since elapsed, will show that it has been executed in no unseemly haste. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Author : Baby Professor
Publisher : Speedy Publishing LLC
Page : 64 pages
File Size : 39,60 MB
Release : 2017-12-01
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN : 1541924010

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What life did Maximilien Robespierre live? How did his actions change an entire nation? Reading historical facts is an interesting way of learning from the events of the past. It’s important to know what happened to rationalize the events of the present times and to also accurately predict what will happen in the future. Get a copy of this book today!

Author : George Henry. Lewes
Publisher : Literary Licensing, LLC
Page : 420 pages
File Size : 29,69 MB
Release : 2014-03
Category :
ISBN : 9781498073714

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This Is A New Release Of The Original 1875 Edition.

Author : Ruth Scurr
Publisher : Metropolitan Books
Page : 452 pages
File Size : 26,21 MB
Release : 2007-04-17
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1466805781

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"Judicious, balanced, and admirably clear at every point. This is quite the calmest and least abusive history of the Revolution you will ever read." —Hilary Mantel, London Review of Books Since his execution by guillotine in July 1794, Maximilien Robespierre has been contested terrain for historians. Was he a bloodthirsty charlatan or the only true defender of revolutionary ideals? The first modern dictator or the earliest democrat? Was his extreme moralism a heroic virtue or a ruinous flaw? Against the dramatic backdrop of the French Revolution, historian Ruth Scurr tracks Robespierre's evolution from provincial lawyer to devastatingly efficient revolutionary leader, righteous and paranoid in equal measure. She explores his reformist zeal, his role in the fall of the monarchy, his passionate attempts to design a modern republic, even his extraordinary effort to found a perfect religion. And she follows him into the Terror, as the former death- penalty opponent makes summary execution the order of the day, himself falling victim to the violence at the age of thirty-six. Written with epic sweep, full of nuance and insight, Fatal Purity is a fascinating portrait of a man who identified with the Revolution to the point of madness, and in so doing changed the course of history.