Breck Baumann's review of Citizens (original) (raw)

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Breck Baumann's Reviews > Citizens

Citizens by Simon Schama

Citizens
by

96806543

Known for its utopian idealism and terrifying violence both in its own time and in the present, the French Revolution is a topic that should keep the reader’s attention with ease as it lets the imagination run wild with suspense and shameful fascination. Simon Schama has scoured through primary (and secondary) resources to retell the history of the Revolution and Reign of Terror from the late 1770’s and on through to Robespierre’s death in 1794. It’s here in almost 800 pages of narrative that he manages to provide an interesting yet at times drawn-out and scattered focus on the people and places involved in the Revolution. With the book itself fortunately following a chronological format, Schama bravely tries to tackle all the experiences and ideas that were founded and eventually shaped from the French and their civil war.

This seems appropriate, but rather than coming up with a “chronicle” to both digest and gain knowledge from, Schama instead manages an encyclopedia-like history of interesting points and abridged biographies taken from the revolutionary period—a fact that will leave his audience paging back to the saga’s index for future reference. Topics such as famine, suicide, loyalty, and the Bastille are scrutinized and broken down in detail, and Schama appropriately leaves almost a third of his book dedicated to sources and the heavy research that accompanies each chapter. Unfortunately, Schama has a tendency to slight previous works on the French Revolution for their faults—even on the basis of mere opinion—which is completely unnecessary and only adds to an already lengthy work:

The war crisis of 1791 and 1792 is often seen by modern historians (many of them not much interested in diplomatic history) as an aberration of the Revolution, something so obviously foolish as to be explicable only in terms of Brissotin tactics to capture power from the Feuillants. But this instrumentalist view of revolutionary war fails to see that patriotic war was, in fact, the logical culmination of almost everything the Revolution represented. It had begun, after all, as the consequence of patriotic exertion in America and had continued to define itself, through allusions to Rome, as the reinvigoration of national power through political transformation.

Nonetheless, the shortcomings of the book are indeed just that—as the work as a whole is full of a wide range of facts and conjecture that will indeed appeal to those who already have extensive knowledge of the period and its unfolding events. The casual reader should be wary, as this is an academic undertaking that at times can feel rather slow and monotone in its style and flow—which is akin to quite a letdown given the fanatic history and horrific nature of the French Revolution. More than twenty illustrations are provided, with a couple of maps full of the various cities of France from the years covered, and a final epilogue which is unique in its telling of the bittersweet reunions that took place after such a barbarous ordeal.

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Reading Progress

February 15, 2021 – Shelved

February 15, 2021 –Finished Reading

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