Research Guides: HIST 150: The French Revolution (Fall 2022): Types of Books

Books aren't all the same

There are different types of books, each with a different amounts & type of information. Examples:

Reference Books
Overviews
Bibliographies
Argumentative Studies

Reference Books

These are very broad works meant to give you a basic overview of a topic. They are only meant as a starting point.

We keep them in their own section of the library and are really meant to direct us to other books.

Europe 1450 to 1789 by Jonathan Dewald
Call Number: Swem Library Available , Reference ; D209 .E97 2004
ISBN: 0684312018
Publication Date: 2003-12-01
Broad in scope, this six volume set presents the history of Europe from the Renaissance, the printing revolution, and the Protestant Reformation in the 1400s and 1500s through the Scientific Revolution of the 1600s, and the Enlightenment and the French Revolution of the 1700s.

Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
Digitized reference books (encyclopedias, directories, dictionaries, thesauri, atlases, quotation dictionaries, handbooks, etc.) in many subjects. Searchable full text across all volumes. Date coverage: Varies by title. Access available to unlimited users.

Overviews (Edited volumes)

These books, edited to include many authors, provides a top-down discussion of the topic. They are a good place to find academic essays on a topic, especially if you don't need a full book of information on the subject.

Downside: they are topical and don't usually have a narrative. Great for specific topics but not ideal for a start-to-finish overview.

The French Revolution by Ronald Schechter (Editor)
Call Number: Swem Library Available , Stacks ; DC147.8 .F73 2001
ISBN: 0631212701
Publication Date: 2001-03-05
This book presents ten selections from the most important scholarship on the French Revolution over the past quarter century, introduced and contextualized for student readers. Historians typically categorize the historiography of the French Revolution according to each author's approval or disapproval of the Revolution, political agenda (for example Marxist, liberal, conservative, or feminist), or methodology (for example social, political, or cultural history). This book demonstrates the inadequacy of these categories of analysis for a nuanced understanding of the Revolution and emphasizes the surprising connections between historians typically seen simply as opponents in a debate. In its thorough introduction, The French Revolution: The Essential Readings demonstrates the success of an eclectic, interdisciplinary approach to this central period in modern European history and the larger relevance of the historiography to the humanities more generally.

A Companion to the French Revolution by Peter McPhee (Editor)
Call Number: online
ISBN: 1283644533
Publication Date: 2012-01-01
"A Companion to the French Revolution" comprises twenty-nine newly-written essays reassessing the origins, development, and impact of this great turning-point in modern history. Examines the origins, development and impact of the French Revolution Features original contributions from leading historians, including six essays translated from French.Presents a wide-ranging overview of current historical debates on the revolution and future directions in scholarshipGives equally thorough treatment to both causes and outcomes of the French Revolution
The Oxford Handbook of the French Revolution by David Andress (Editor)
Call Number: Swem Library Available , Stacks ; DC148 .O945 2015
ISBN: 9780199639748
Publication Date: 2015-03-22
The Oxford Handbook of the French Revolution brings together a sweeping range of expert and innovative contributions to offer engaging and thought-provoking insights into the history and historiography of this epochal event. Each chapter presents the foremost summations of academic thinking onkey topics, along with stimulating and provocative interpretations and suggestions for future research directions.Placing core dimensions of the history of the French Revolution in their transnational and global contexts, the contributors demonstrate that revolutionary times demand close analysis of sometimes tiny groups of key political actors - whether the king and his ministers or the besieged leaders of theJacobin republic - and attention to the deeply local politics of both rural and urban populations. Identities of class, gender and ethnicity are interrogated, but so too are conceptions and practices linked to citizenship, community, order, security, and freedom: each in their way just as central torevolutionary experiences, and equally amenable to critical analysis and reflection.This volume covers the structural and political contexts that build up to give new views on the classic question of the "origins of revolution"; the different dimensions of personal and social experience that illuminate the political moment of 1789 itself; the goals and dilemmas of the period ofconstitutional monarchy; the processes of destabilisation and ongoing conflict that ended that experiment; the key issues surrounding the emergence and experience of 'terror'; and the short- and long-term legacies, for both good and ill, of the revolutionary trauma - for France, and for globalpolitics.

Overviews (Single Author Narratives)

There are books written by one (or sometimes several) authors who provide a narrative overview of the topic.

Good for an introduction and overview, though it means the whole books reflects their views & ideas alone.

The French Revolution 1787-1804 by P. M. Jones
Call Number: Online
ISBN: 1134973659
Publication Date: 2016-08-19
P. M. Jones' The French Revolution, now in its third edition, is an authoritative survey of events in France from 1787, as the power of the ancien régime began to crumble, until 1804 and the demise of the Republic. It provides a balanced and accessible account of the dramatic events of the intervening years, including the fall of the Bastille, the months of the Terror and the journey towards the creation of the First French Empire, are analysed, along with an assessment of the wider significance of the revolutionary decade. This new edition has been fully revised and updated to include new material on citizenship, gender, equality and legal reforms, and the imperial dimension of the Revolution. The historiographical debate is brought right up to date, taking into account the most recent scholarship on the Revolution. The narrative is supported by a selection of original documents which shed light on events of the period from the perspective of those who lived through it. With supplementary materials including a chronology, who's who, glossary and guide to further reading, this book remains an invaluable resource for students of the French Revolution.
The French Revolution by Johnson, Douglas, 1925-
Call Number: Swem Library Available , Stacks ; DC149.5 .J6 1970
ISBN: 0399103252
Publication Date: 1970
Recounts the causes and events of the French Revolution with the aid of contemporary illustrations.
Tocqueville by Jon Elster (Editor); Arthur Goldhammer (Translator)
Call Number: ebook
ISBN: 0521889804
Publication Date: 2011-06-27
This translation of an undisputed classic aims to be both accurate and readable. Tocqueville's subtlety of style and profundity of thought offer a challenge to readers as well as to translators. As both a Tocqueville scholar and an award-winning translator, Arthur Goldhammer is uniquely qualified for the task. In his Introduction, Jon Elster draws on his recent work to lay out the structure of Tocqueville' argument. Readers will appreciate The Ancien Régime and the French Revolution for its sense of irony as well as tragedy, for its deep insights into political psychology and for its impassioned defense of liberty.

Argument Books

All books have an argument. Even large narrative books will, perhaps subtly, have an argument.

Many academic books, however, have a very specific argument and narrow focus. These are not always great for a broad understanding of field but may be useful in higher level research.

The Family and the Nation by Jennifer Ngaire Heuer
Call Number: Swem Library Available , Stacks ; DC158.8 .H48 2005
ISBN: 0801442869
Publication Date: 2005-06-23
The French Revolution transformed the nation's?and eventually the world's?thinking about citizenship, nationality, and gender roles. At the same time, it created fundamental contradictions between citizenship and family as women acquired new rights and duties but remained dependents within the household. In The Family and the Nation, Jennifer Ngaire Heuer examines the meaning of citizenship during and after the revolution and the relationship between citizenship and gender as these ideas and practices were reworked in the late 1790s and early nineteenth century.Heuer argues that tensions between family and nation shaped men's and women's legal and social identities from the Revolution and Terror through the Restoration. She shows the critical importance of relating nationality to political citizenship and of examining the application, not just the creation, of new categories of membership in the nation. Heuer draws on diverse historical sources?from political treatises to police records, immigration reports to court cases?to demonstrate the extent of revolutionary concern over national citizenship. This book casts into relief France's evolving attitudes toward patriotism, immigration, and emigration, and the frequently opposing demands of family ties and citizenship.
The French Revolution and Empire by Donald M. G. Sutherland
Call Number: Online
ISBN: 0631233628
Publication Date: 2003-01-10
This book provides students and general readers with an introduction to revolutionary France whilst also presenting a clear argument to explain the events of the period. Provides students and general readers with an introduction to revolutionary France . Also presents a clear argument to explain the events of the period. Argues that the French Revolution encountered resistance from the poor as well as the privileged. Includes substantial discussion of society and government under Napoleon. Contextualizing material in each chapter aids students new to the topic.

Dissertations

For this class you won't use a dissertation, but they are an example of an Extremely focused book-length project.

They are not technically peer reviewed nor published, and are designed to highlight entirely original research. A dissertation is required to obtain a PhD.

Example: "Married Nuns in the French Revolution: The Sexual Revolution of the 1790s"
The French Revolution was also a cultural revolution that redefined the relationship of the family to the state and precipitated unprecedented religious changes in French society. In the eighteenth century, philosophes attacked religious celibacy, which previously had been viewed as a higher spiritual calling. Defining celibacy as detrimental to society and unpatriotic, reformers instead promoted marriage as a productive institution that severed as the basis of civil society. Almost from the first moments of the Revolution, legislators—concerned that religious vows violated individual rights—considered the dissolution of monasticism. Although women religious hastened to petition the National Assembly in defense of their way of life, the political and religious schism caused by the oath to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy ended the sympathetic relationship that had developed between nuns and legislators. The dominant image of nuns transformed from victim to fanatic. The perceived counterrevolutionary sentiments of nuns justified the complete suppression of convents in 1792. Revolutionary propaganda and the loss of a secure social status encouraged former nuns to marry. Previously historians have believed that nuns' marriages were motivated by active religious persecution that took place during the dechristianization campaign of 1793- 1794. Reinvestigating the best source of information on married nuns—the Cardinal Caprara archives of petitioners who requested reconciliation with the Catholic Church under the Empire—reveals that nuns' marriages were not really motivated by Revolutionary dechristianization campaigns. Instead married nuns explained that they believed that they had the right to marry, that they fell in love, or that they had married to secure economic stability. Moreover, looking at complete departmental studies we find that nuns' marriages were not as rare or historically inconsequential as formerly thought. Historians have underestimated the number of married nuns and failed to recognized marriage as an important survival strategy, especially for the youngest nuns. In fact, many nuns internalized revolutionary discourse that promoted companionate marriage and individual rights. Their correspondence provides proof of a sexual revolution that overturned a previous sexual order, rejected celibacy, and more firmly entrenched a pro- nuptial culture in Revolutionary France.
more...less...
2014 PhD in History from University of California, Irvine

HIST 150: The French Revolution (Fall 2022)

How have history topics changed?

Historiography

Finding Primary Sources in the Catalog