Liberty or Death: The French Revolution by Peter McPhee

Liberty or Death: The French Revolution Reviews

• 
  David

  Every generation gets the French Revolution it deserves™*, and this book might be ours.
  
  Drawing parallels between long-gone periods and one's own time can be tedious and pointless. Nevertheless, here I go, inspired by this book. I will attempt brevity (minimizing tediousness) and leave it to the reader to judge whether I have a point.
  
  Let X equal a profound idea: revolutionary equality then, globalization now. A small group of self-styled original thinkers of the capital and similar large cities introduce X into the public discourse. Some people object to X.
  
  “You fail to understand the great benefit X will bring,” the s.-s. original thinkers say. “With that additional prosperity and brotherhood, we will have more resources to help those disadvantaged by the inevitable changes.”
  
  After a while, the thinkers convince a sufficient number of politicians and average citizens that X is a great idea. Objectors, the thinkers say, are hopelessly shortsighted and/or insufficiently interested in the greater public interest. X is adopted as government policy.
  
  X causes some people to be better off (I call them, non-judgmentally, “winners”) and others worse (“losers”). Some of the losers are those who objected to X in the first place; others are former enthusiasts. Many of the losers live outside the capital, which is generally the place that the ambitious wish to be, thanks to X.
  
  “Hey, wait a minute,” the losers say. “You said X would bring great benefit, but things suck worse than before outside the capital, and that help you implied would materialized never did so. Plus I have lost A, B, and C, all things that I cherished before.”
  
  The winners reply: “Overall, however, X has benefitted many people, even though none of them are friends of yours. Sorry about the lack of help, maybe some will come soon. Also, A, B, and C were all things that were holding you back and you are really better off without them.”
  
  The losers do not agree, especially with the last, and take arms (literally and figuratively) against the winners.
  
  End of (over-)extended metaphor.
  
  This excellent book is an interesting reworking of the story of the French Revolution. The dramatic stories (e.g., Louis's attempted escape, the taking of the Bastille, Marat's assassination, etc.) appear but in dried-out, minimized versions, so the focus of the book can stay on a category of people whom (I believe) have been underreported in virtually every episode of history, specifically, average folks living outside the capital. Because of this unorthodox approach, this might not be the best starting point for complete French Revolution newbies. However, it is very clear and readable, so anybody who can recall their last European history survey class should not be confused.
  
  This book seeks to do the same admirable thing for 1790's France that English historian
  David Kynaston is doing for mid-20th century England, that is, bring to our attention the voices of the unfamous who were living through the events, through their letters, memoirs, diary entries, and the like. I find this extremely admirable, no matter the era, and I invite you to think the same.
  
  Thanks to those most excellent people at
  Netgalley and
  Yale University Press for a free electronic review copy of this book.
  
  *Nota bene: There is no documentation (on Google) that the profound-sounding turn of phrase “Every generation gets the French Revolution it deserves” has been uttered by anyone, not even Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, or Oscar Wilde, who between them seem to have said most everything else. I therefore claim it as the property of the International Bon Mot Partnership, LLC, a legal entity with registration pending in the state of Delaware and the Cayman Islands. Any rebroadcast, retransmission, or account of this quotation, in writing, by voice, or by any other means (including but not limited to Morse Code and semaphore flags), without the express written consent of the International Bon Mot Partnership, LLC, is prohibited. Violators will be hounded to death by greed-crazed intellectual property attorneys to the fullest extent of the law, which is a much further extent than is seemly or reasonable.
• 
  Declan Melia

  It seems a little unfair on Mr. McPhee to review his excellent history of the French Revolution in such proximity to Simon Schama’s awe inspiring Citizens, which I think has only risen in my estimations since I closed its covers. This was just as comprehensive -for which of course McPhee should be applauded - but much more dethatched. It’s impeccably researched and clearly put forward, overflowing with statistics and percentages, dates and estimations. But, to my sensationalist tastes, it was something of a statistician’s history, not because it dealt so often in numbers, but because it didn’t do enough to make you feel what those numbers mean. Characters were introduced only to disappear again very quickly, before you had drawn any connection to these names on a page as living breathing people. In short, it was a little impersonal (to use that term in its most expansive sense) for me to fall in love with. Finally, the writing style, though clear and concise, became quite repetitive, which meant some sections became, regrettably, a bit of a wash. Never the less, this is a great source, it has everything you need to know and, it’s a little softer on Robespierre and the Jacobins than most other sources you’ll find.
• 
  Brian Willis

  A good look at the overall impact of the Revolution, particularly incorporating perspectives from outside of Paris. The basic narrative as well as biographical portraits are included, but the impact on the normal citizens of France are clearly delineated. A great medium between the shorter Hibbert classic, which does not analyze the impact of the events as well as McPhee does here, and the epic Schama version which might be dauntingly complex and complete for most readers. The latest book on this epochal moment in Western history.
• 
  Omar

  While I applaud the author's inclusion of multi-dimensional impacts of the Revolution, such as changes to communal land use and the destruction of forests (!), it doesn't quite manage to become engaging in terms of storytelling. This subject needn't be dry.
• 
  Mark Alexis

  "They said to her in a harsh voice: 'Cry out: Long live the nation!' – 'No! no!' she said. They made her climb onto a heap of corpses. ... Then a killer seized her, tore off her dress and opened her belly. She fell, and was finished off by the others." So ended the life of the Princess de Lamballe, a close confidante of Marie Antoinette, in 1792.
  
  This harrowing episode is one of many documented in Peter McPhee's 2016 book about the French Revolution, Liberty or Death: The French Revolution. This thorough and well-researched work takes off in pre-revolutionary France, which the author explains "was a land of mass poverty in which most people were vulnerable to harvest failure" and "in which the weight of authority guaranteed relative obedience and stability." This state of obedience gradually disintegrated throughout the eighteenth century, as food-rioting and "complaints about the presumptions of the privileged" increased. A patchwork of overlapping authorities of monarchy, aristocracy and Church in those days, France was economically backward compared to England, where the Industrial Revolution was well underway by 1789. France's peasants and artisans had ample reason for discontent with their rulers.
  
  Their fury, however, set in motion a chain of events that few had foreseen, and that few would argue led ultimately to an improvement upon Louis XVI's rule. McPhee details chapter by chapter the many phases of the Revolution, which in the eyes of its protagonists was never "completed", not least because resistance to the rapid changes grew by the day. Concepts completely alien to the French population, such as a uniform rule of law, (more or less) free enterprise, separation of church and state and a national system of taxation, were introduced virtually overnight, to the dismay of many French.
  
  A major pocket of rebellion was the Catholic Church, which had effectively been rendered a minion of the state, its property nationalized and its clergy forced to swear an oath of loyalty to the new government. "This was the moment that fractured the Revolution," writes McPhee, for it split the clergy and their respective communities into two camps violently opposing each other. Full-scale civil war broke out in the Vendée region along France's west coast.
  
  To make matters worse, further pressure was put on the new republic by surrounding countries, which, in a precursor to the 'domino theory' in the era of Communism, feared they could fall prey to the republican virus too. Before long, the new French government found itself at war on multiple fronts.
  
  The internal and external resistance to the young republic proved more than its defenders were willing to tolerate. Gradually new-found liberties were dialed back, sweeping government powers were instituted, enemies (real of perceived) were preventively detained, and in 1973 the infamous Committee of Public Safety was set up. Though the goal was to "secure the Republic" to a point where the new constitution could be fully implemented, instead the Revolution's leaders grew more radical as all this played out -- and their suspicions weren't just aimed at recalcitrant Catholic priests either: "Those who battled over the implementation of the revolutionary changes," McPhee says, "worked within pre-existing or newly formed networks of friends and the like-minded. There were others they came to mistrust, even to hate. Particular individuals came to be seen to personify particular phases of the Revolution, and were consequently loved or demonized."
  
  After the election of Maximilien Robespierre to the Committee of Public Safety on July 27, 1793, this government body, formed to protect the new republic against foreign and domestic threats, ignited a period of bloodshed later branded the 'Reign of Terror' and turned into a de facto dictatorship. Or did it? McPhee writes: "It has often been caricatured as a dictatorial, even totalitarian regime imposed by ideologues, particularly Robespierre and Saint-Just, to create a 'virtuous' society based on the violent exclusion of the 'other'. Robespierre ... was indeed the most articulate and admired of the Jacobin leaders (as well as the most despised by opponents), but the Jacobins were a mixed group of republicans applying exceptional laws in extraordinary circumstances as they grappled both to create a republican society and to defend it against its enemies." He adds later: "It was the counter-revolution and the mixed emotions of panic, outrage, pride and fear that it aroused that fostered a willingness to believe that enemies were omnipresent. Then the outbreak of war transformed political divisions into matters of life and death."
  
  As is usual within these regimes, the revolutionaries ate their own before long and Robespierre was arrested and executed along with a few of his cronies, bringing an end to the Terror. A new constitution was adopted in 1795 with more emphasis on equality before the law than equality of outcome. However, the new leaders "were never able to feel confident that they acted with the willing support of most citizens," and remained eager to resort to repression. The post-Robespierre regime "had the misfortune of having to establish itself during years of subsistence crisis," McPhee writes. "But by its religious, military, economic and social policies, the regime further alienated large numbers of people ..." There was ample resentment against military conscription, especially when the armies were employed to fight uprisings like in Brittany. The military adventures abroad, too, looked more and more like naked occupation than "revolutionary emancipation".
  
  It was within this political turmoil that an up and coming general by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte staged a military coup in 1799 and effectively ended the French Revolution. A new constitution was adopted under which France was ruled by three consuls, Napoleon being one of them. "A Tribunate of a hundred members members was to discuss legislation but not vote," while "a Legislative Assembly of three hundred was to vote on legislation without discussion." Government was centralized and made more hierarchical in the years that followed. This is the point where Liberty or Death is concluded.
  
  The book's author is fairly even in his judgements of the many events between 1789 and 1799. On the one hand, he notes, "The most powerful image has always been the legacy of 1789 and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, seen to exemplify the highest aspirations for a society based on popular sovereignty, freedom of expression and opportunity, and respect for the rights of others." On the other hand, an image can be painted "of 1789 as unnecessary popular excess that degenerated into destructive, bloody civil war. This image has been one of loss: of tradition, of respect for religion and authority, and of the rich tapestry of provincial institutions and cultures."
  
  Nevertheless, McPhee's verdict on Robespierre and his fellow Jacobins, whom he argues were merely grappling to seize control of a nation in a state of panic and fear and not acting as all-out dictators, seems oddly mild. In the author's own words, "the net necessary to ensnare enemies of the Revolution trapped many thousands of people whose only mistake was to be critical of government policy rather than being engaged in armed counter-revolutionary activity." By "trapped", McPhee means that their heads were chopped off by the guillotine, an act of cold-blooded murder of French citizens by their government. The Jacobins' actions were based on an ideology preaching "the certainty about the innate goodness of the common people, corrupted by centuries of misery and ignorance and now by the deception, even conspiracy, of those who would prevent them from reaping the revolutionary harvest." They learned this folly from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose works are today widely considered to be one of the foundations of socialism.
  
  This reviewer is therefore tempted to give some consideration to Edmund Burke's remark that "An ignorant man, who is not fool enough to meddle with his clock, is however sufficiently confident to think he can safely take to pieces, and put together at his pleasure, a moral machine of another guise, importance and complexity, composed of far other wheels, and springs, and balances, and counteracting and co-operating powers. Men little think how immorally they act in rashly meddling with what they do not understand. Their delusive good intention is no sort of excuse for their presumption. They who truly mean well must be fearful of acting ill." These words were written in 1790, mind you. 'Leaders' who, in service of a radical ideology, demonstrate such ample disregard for a people's culture and traditions should not be given a free pass by the chroniclers of history, even if their actions helped spread the virtues of limited, republican government -- for that outcome was only one side of the coin. It's not a compliment that Lenin and his fellow Russian revolutionaries looked to the Jacobins with admiration a hundred years later.
  
  I have another, smaller beef with the book. If you were looking for an engaging, invigorating account of the French Revolution, Liberty or Death might not be for you. Though at times interesting and packed with illustrative anecdotes, it often made me think of Dr. Johnson's quip about Milton's Paradise Lost that "None ever wished it longer than it is." The book's protagonists never really come to life. Their backgrounds are left in the dark and their personal motives are left unexplored. Too much the book lapses into providing a bird's eye view of the events at hand. It makes for dry reading. The author's use of the silly revolutionary calendar throughout the book doesn't help matters.
  
  That said, it is plain that an enormous amount of research went into Liberty or Death and Peter McPhee is to be commended for his efforts. I would recommend this book to serious students of the French Revolution, if perhaps not to those dipping their toes into this important subject for the first time.
• 
  Igor Faynshteyn

  For a long time French Revolution fascinated me as a grand historical event and I have been searching for a solid history book that is neither a textbook nor a historical novel, only loosely based on evidence. In other words, I have been looking for a popular history book, on the model of Gordon Wood's histories, aimed at a general, but educated and interested public.
  
  I first tried Eric Hobsbawm's first installment of his trilogy, the Age of Revolution. That didn't work, as it was mostly a theoretical work, only briefly touching on the events of the French Revolution, and requiring a solid background knowledge. I then purchased William Doyle's Oxford History of the FR and got through about half of it, only to quit, because I found it a dull aggregation of countless facts and events, without much conceptual framework or analysis. I then read Tim Blanning's installment of Penguin History of Europe - the Pursuit of Glory - which spanned a 170 year period, capping off with some 30-40 pages about the FR. I found it more interesting and insightful than the others, but ultimately unsatisfying, as it was too brief.
  
  Enter Peter McPhee's new book about the FR, with an added originality: an extended focus on the provincial places outside of Paris. It is a 370 pg. book (reading pages, not including bibliography) that unfortunately tends to drag the reader through a thick forest of countless facts, introducing hundreds, if not thousands, of names in the process, who make nothing more than a cameo appearance. One quickly loses the forest for the trees and ends up with no better broad knowledge and conceptual understanding of the FR than before starting this book.
  
  This is a true disappointment, especially in light of the fact that McPhee is probably the first academic and author to give France's peripheral provinces their due, in terms of their role and significance in the Revolution. One gets a fuller sense of what was going on for a decade in all of France, as opposed to just in Paris. Unfortunately, McPhee gives as much attention to the storming of the Bastille, the fleeing and execution of Louis XVI and intellectual debates as much as he does to any given ordinary person jotting something down in his or her diary on a given day. In other words, if a reader is a total novice to the FR and has absolutely no clue about any events of the FR, he/she wouldn't know the difference between significant and insignificant events that took place.
  
  More importantly, McPhee provides close to no intellectual or conceptual framework for understanding the FR. He is so obsessed with providing countless facts, absolutely useless and trivial statistics, diary entries, composed songs and poems, that one gets a sense that he is not interested in imparting his knowledge to the reader at all. The book often feels like a PhD thesis, or a monograph aimed at a graduate student looking for a source of facts and stats.
  
  If you are like me, who is still looking for a popular and balanced history of the FR, that is neither a purely theoretical work, nor one peppered with unguided facts and stats, I would not recommend this book.
• 
  Hermance

  Liberty or Death: the French Revolution is an extraordinarily detailed historical piece written by Peter McPhee, an expert in French history and a former professor at the University of Melbourne.
  As a French woman, I have, in my teenage years, studied the French Revolution from the taking of La Bastille on July 14th 1789 until Napoleon Bonaparte's successful coup in 1799 (which put an end to the First Republic). However, the various events and consequences that I learnt about during my history classes were always focused on Paris and a few other important French metropolises. This is why I have immensely enjoyed reading Peter McPhee's Liberty or Death: the French Revolution as, in this historical piece, I have been able to discover the various actions and events that occurred in other regions, towns and villages across France.
  Another aspect that I found extremely interesting was being able to see the different ramifications of both Girondins' and Montagnards' actions onto the French people in a very detailed manner.
  Moreover, his take on the reason why the French revolution grew more and more radical throughout the years was quite thought-provoking (the decline of the relationship between the church and the state as well as the many threats coming from neighbouring countries ready to invade France due to its regime perceived as an unstable.).
  To conclude, this book is impeccably researched, thorough and written in a clear manner. However, it is not an easy read.
  I highly recommend you to read this book if you have an interest in French history and want to know all there is to know about the French revolution.
• 
  Bill Lucey

  Peter McPhee, an outstanding historian and a brilliant writer, did a spectacular job of researching the social currents and economic cataclysms of 18th century France, which sparked the French Revolution in his latest book” “Liberty or Death: The French Revolution.”
  
  Though the revolution was ruthlessly waged almost 230 years ago for principles near and dear to the hearts of western democracies of today, namely, popular sovereignty, human rights, religious toleration, equality before the law, McPhee poignantly reminds readers that the revolutionary spirit for some of these very same principles are still being waged today across the globe as recent regime changes in eastern and south-eastern Europe and the ‘Arab Spring can plainly attest.
  
  McPhee’s sharp analysis of 18th century Europe, along with placing the revolution in a broader global context (Europe, the Atlantic region, e.g.) is exemplary.
  
  --Bill Lucey
• 
  Nick

  If you're interested in the French Revolution or French history in general, I highly recommend this book. McPhee focuses on how the revolution affected the lives of ordinary people and French society and culture. For many ordinary people the events of 1789-99 were a disaster, and for many others they were an empowering experience, when they were able to take control of their own lives and help to create a new society. McPhee talks about powerful people as well, but they aren't the only focus. However, if you aren't familiar with the basic narrative of the revolution I'd recommend reading Sylvia Neely's "A Concise History of the French Revolution" first.
• 
  Matthew Griffiths

  This was a great account for simplicity and comprehensiveness of coverage of the French Revolution from start to finish. Gave a good idea of the myriad causes of the revolution and why it happened in the way that it did and also went some way to explain some of its legacy in the modern world such as the notion of citizenship which I had always assumed was something of an intrinsic human idea not a concept which owes its modern definition very much to ideas expressed during this period. For a detailed walk through of one of histories critical events you cant go wrong with this.
• 
  Fred Hughes

  This is a tough read. I'm sure the author has done extensive research on his subject and is proud to share all of it with extensive details.
  
  As such it reads more as a text book then a story of the events, and there in lies the rub. I wanted to read the story of the French Revolution, but this isn't that book.
  
  Oh well
• 
  AC

  This book along with The Great Courses lecture series by University of Wisconsin professor Suzanne Desan has made me even more interested in the French Revolution. Up next for me will be a political bio on Napoleon and a bio on Robespierre. I’ll finish up my French History kick with a book on modern France since 1815.
• 
  Jo

  Very in-depth, while also accounting for the broad picture. You get a good sense for the mindset and conditions over time and regions, and the experiences of both those in power, and those just trying to survive and thrive.
• 
  Mshelton50

  A good, thoroughly well-researched history of the French Revolution from 1789 until the establishment of the Consulate in December 1799. I would recommend it to anyone interested in French history. I bought the paperback edition, which is a beautifully made little book.
• 
  Joseph Jupille

  This came well recommended, and rightly so. I needed a basic history to begin to address my woeful ignorance of the Revolution, and this really fit the bill. McPhee writes wonderfully, weaving lots of themes very deftly into a mostly chronological narrative.
• 
  Roderick Craig

  An excellent synthesis of the whole revolutionary period in France and a very interesting reflection on it's lasting consequences to this day.
• 
  Robert

  This book was written by an Australian. France is big. Really big. So mind-crunchingly large that most people's understanding of the French revolution is worshiping an idol of reason in a church. But France is big. So big that sometimes the priests were left more or less alone, and some times the bells were melted down for bullets. This book has many details and funny names. They make it easier to stay awake. I read this ostensibly to study for the FSOT. Whether this was a good idea remains to be seen.
  
  I started writing a poem with a meter scheme I made up in order to stay awake while reading:
  
  Killed, caught, directors dropped
  At the Rhune of Rastadt princes were paid
  A Rangle army burst Batavia
  Bonaparte brought his brother battlers
  consuling constitution not Nivose
  Dispowering prefects procedural
  dictating tritely tutelage
  
  Austrians at Allessandria all
  most at Morengo, Moreau at Munich
  both beaten as Brittain on the borders
  Proposing peace with pope and parishes
  pressure of power preserved this peace
  the break with bourbon burgeoned citizens
  Persuasion politic for factional
  
  fraternities for Frenchification
  Markers of money cut clearer Culottes
  Provinces parasite, Arras, Angers
  men's motion mended dies destitute
  Ronceray wrtechtes tax laden laborers
  legal loss of nobles, notables not
  dominant dispenser of seignoural sweate
  
  retained reward tall proud peasants.
  Mill monopolies regally resigned
  Bayeux, Balleroy, parishes unpriest
  republic not replacing the monarch
  revolving does not remove ritual
  mental markers of elite entrenched
  mobs made the man's strong sovereignty so
  Malesherbes Louis' Lawyer was lowered
  
  Lafayette gave Washington the keys to the Bastille "as a son to my adoptive father, as an aide-de-camp to my general" (87). Washington told Lafayette that France would be an example for all of Europe (87). He was wrong. Europe would unite to stop France (367). If Washington had had a more detached view of Lafayette, he might have been more skeptical of his actions. In this respect, his personal relationship to Lafayette clouded his judgment and placed a seal of approval on a reign of terror.
• 
  Reza Amiri Praramadhan

  French Revolution was the greatest ‘serves you right’ moment in history. Kingdom of France supports to American Revolutionaries against the British Empire during the American Revolutionary War backfired spectacularly for the french, for it burdened the kingdom with economic hardships and exposed the inadequacy of the Ancien Regime. Armed with the mantra, “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite”, french revolutionaries set upon a quest to build a whole new world free from the tyrannies of the old. However, the revolution, consumed by fear of saboteurs among its own people and and foreign conspiracies to restore the old system, quickly descended into reign of terror, in which so many heads rolled, which only ended with the severing of Jacques Robespierre’s head. Afterwards, command was taken by The Directory, which sought to moderate the excesses of earlier time, yet mistakenly shifted its focus towards exporting the revolution all around europe, ironically giving popular and powerful military figure like Napoleon Bonaparte way to take over.
  
  Overall, for a book that take on a series of important events, the author had done a good job in compressing about a decade of French Revolution into something that is coherent and flowing to read. However, I get the feeling that many important events are only given a passing glances, one paragraph at its best, which put a damp in my enthusiasm in this book.
• 
  Glen Pekin

  I picked this up as my first book on the French revolution. Mostly I read US and 20th century history. If you think that you will be reading an exciting tale of Danton, Robespierre, Marat and Napoleon you are mistaken. These icons of the books and movies of our popular culture are scarcely mentioned. What we have here is a social/economic history of France between 1789 and about 1800. It is packed with obscure names and places. One is constantly being sent off to Wikipedia for clarification of what a Girondine is and how the French parliament works and many other unfamiliar terms that the author simply assumes that you are aware of. Still, it's a great read and it inspires me to go back to the library for another book on the subject. Well, of course the topic is far too extensive for only one book. It reminds how I have read two books on Andrew Jackson, one of which never mentions Indians and the other never mentions Banks. Time is short and there isn't enough of it to read everything. If you don't have the time or inclination to probe this deep into study of cultural themes rather than personal biography at least go to the library and read the last chapter which seems to me (the new comer to the French revolution) to be an excellent summary of the world before the French revolution and the world after. It ties in nicely with 1848, Year of Revolution by Michael Rapport. Which of course leads to the Franco Prussian War and all that follows.
• 
  Mike Bailey

  This book manages to make the French Revolution really, really dull. Phone-book dull. I made it halfway b/c the reality is interesting, but had to end it. My heart would sink when I would see it on my bedside table. Some tidbits: p. 59 rioters in some cases would be yelling "vive le Roi"; I don't think ironically, but cooly ironic nonetheless.p. 172 king's death was based on majority (and divided) vote p. 180 McPhee mentions Marquis de Sade having his chateau pillaged and DOES NOT NOTE who this is. Seriously? Just another Marquis with his sofa getting burned? Criminy
• 
  Monica Laurette

  As a lover of the French Revolution period this was a great read. So many elements went into the years of hardship for the French people, and this book lays them out perfectly with the author never typing our their opinion or interpretation of the facts in front of you.