A Short History of the French Revolution, 1789-1799

Albert Soboul has held the Chair of the History of the French Revolution at the Sorbone since 1967, and is probably the leading Marxist scholar working in that field today. The book translated here should be regarded more as a synopsis of Professor Soboul's interpretation of the Revolution than as a detailed account of the course of events; it is an essay in analysis rather than a narrative. In it the author argues that the French Revolution can only be understood in terms of class struggle, and that any attempt to diminish the significance of class conflict as its motive force obscures the meaning of the events of the Revolution and rends them ultimately incomprehensible.The course of the Revolution and its final outcome, which was clear by the time Napoleon seized power in 1799, were the products of a complex class struggle enacted simultaneously on many levels, leading finally to the triumph of the bourgeoisie, the defeat of the aristocracy, and the fragmentation and collapse of