About the Book

Albert Soboul died in 1982. His influence upon an entire generation of French Revolutionary scholars throughout the world was incalculable. It still operates today. His magisterial work The Parisian Sansculottes and The French Revolution, 1793-4 (Oxford, 1964) marked a definitive turning-point in the historiography of `1789', accelerating the move which was already under way of studying 'history from below'. The French Revolution 1787-1799, newly reissued in paperback, has long been hailed as one of the classic general accounts of the Revolution. Writing very much for the present generation, Albert Soboul places the major events of the Revolution within the broader framework of the intellectual, political, and socio-economic processes of the time, including the struggle for economic hegemony of the known world between Britain and France and the intellectual and political influences of the American War of Independence. About the New Edition: A new preface by Gwynne Lewis insists upon the relevance and validity of Albert Soboul's work despite the open and covert attacks which have been launched upon it by 'revisionist' historians in Britain, France and America. Gwynne Lewis is Professor of History at the University of Warwick.