The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution

De: Timothy Tackett

Narrado por: Michael Page

Between 1793 and 1794, thousands of French citizens were imprisoned and hundreds sent to the guillotine by a powerful dictatorship that claimed to be acting in the public interest. Only a few years earlier, revolutionaries had proclaimed a new era of tolerance, equal justice, and human rights. How and why did the French Revolution's lofty ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity descend into violence and terror?

©2015 The President and Fellows of Harvard College (P)2020 Tantor

smart, well documented and very interesting

The psychology and the causes of the descent into terror are very well presented.
Although I had been warned( by the title itself), I was a bit dissapointed that the events of year II (the apogee of terror)were almost not discussed, as the book mainly focuses on the events that preceded the terror( and how they created it), and not on the terror itself.

Interesting background into French attitudes

I don't claim to know much of French society and culture. But I have frequently been puzzled by some of their usual actions in history.
This lends some insight to their actions.

Great history writing

This is a very balanced and careful study of the French terror. It is thorough and easy to listen to. Happily, it is free of any intrusion of modern political debate.

Terrible Accent

I'm only an hour in and the narrator's horrible french accent is killing me. I can't even understand what he's trying to say half the time. The author seems to have an engaging style, but it's really hard to tell with this guy's garbling pulling me right out of the story.

NEED PATIENCE TO LISTEN

An excellent book for content.

This narrative is difficult. Narrator comes through as arrogant.

A lot of information.

There is a lot of information in this series of lectures. The author knows the subject well and is qualified to present his point of view which is very interesting, but ultimately, narrow-minded, representing an enthusiastic but rather one-sided view of some historical events.

Coming of the Terror, indeed

A general history of the French Revolution that essentially ends with the downfall of Robespierre. It's told mostly through anecdotal recitations of letters and diaries to support the author's conclusions. (This seems to be a recurring theme in many histories today, makes one wonder if historians two and a half centuries from now will base conclusions on postings in 4Chan, Tumblr and Grinder?) IMO, the author should have shortened the time frame and not begun with pre-revolutionary France but expounded more broadly on the immediate causes of the Terror, say after the flight of Louis XVI to Varennes? But to each his own. It is obvious the author did a tremendous amount of research, so much so that it seemed he got me lost in the weeds several times. So much so that by the time he gets to the Terror, the horrors of it though mentioned aren't fully exposed.