French Revolution 
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
6/1/2023
Does the Man at the Top Get the Blame for Bankruptcy? French Nobles Found Out the Hard Way
by Christine Adams
French nobility expected a bankruptcy crisis abetted by their intransigence to force Louis XVI to accept a constitutional monarchy. They got revolution instead. Does the House Freedom Caucus understand this lesson?
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SOURCE: Age of Revolutions
4/10/2023
The French Fascination with the Cadavers of the Bastille
by Nicole Bauer
The prison held a symbolic place in the minds of antiroyalists that exceeded its actual significance; the themes of gothic horror were reflected in political tracts that denounced the horrors of imprisonment there.
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SOURCE: Age of Revolutions
8/8/2022
Thoroughly Modern Maxie: Robespierre and His Legacy for Democracy Today
by Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall
"If Robespierre was not by nature a murderous despot, who was he and what does he have to teach us – especially at a time, like that of the French Revolution, when progressives and liberals are divided about how to prioritize the rights of minoritized groups?"
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SOURCE: New York Review of Books
2/22/2022
The End of the Terror
by David A. Bell
Colin Jones's book examines the events of one day, but poses big questions about popular will and the legitimacy of the state.
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9/5/2021
Lafayette as "The Nation’s Guest" (1824-1825)
by Mike Duncan
When Lafayette returned to America in 1824, he found the new nation already torn between his beloved ideal of liberty and the entrenched institution of slavery. HNN presents an excerpt from Mike Duncan's new book "Hero of Two Worlds."
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7/25/2021
The Difference a Day Makes: Robespierre's 9 Thermidor
by Colin Jones
The eventful 9 Thermidor (July 27, 1794) is seen as a pivotal day for French Revolution. Colin Jones digs deep into the archival documentation of the day and argues that the day's significance is real but misunderstood.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
5/7/2021
The French Revolution Offers a Critical Lesson as the U.S. Returns to Normal
by Christine Adams
The aftermath of the French Reign of Terror shows that prematurely embracing a "new normal" after traumatic political violence leads to unsustainable peace, especially when that normalcy amounts to the upper classes reclaiming privilege and pleasure.
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2/21/2021
January 6, 2021: A Day of Populist Transgression
by Robert A. Schneider
The Capitol riot included a small core of actors bent on destruction, with many more along for the ride reveling in a moment of transgression. In this way, it was a microcosm of the Trumpian movement that, now unleashed, will be difficult to contain.
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SOURCE: Age of Revolutions
1/22/2021
4 Cautionary Tales from the French Revolution
by Christine Adams
A historian of revolutionary France argues that the period presents cautions about the prevalence of disinformation, the potential of rhetoric to incite, the folly of blaming singular figures for broad trends and movements, and the cynicism that flows from efforts to undermine the legitimacy of democratic institutions.
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SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
8/18/2020
Conspiracy Theories Make Sense of a Topsy-Turvy World — But Undermine Democracy
by Zachary R. Goldsmith
While the “paranoid style” in the various conspiracy theories of QAnon are nothing new, they certainly bode ill for democracy.
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SOURCE: Age of Revolutions
8/17/2020
Liberté, Equality, #ICantBreathe! Teaching the Age of Revolutions Using the NBA’s 2020 Summer Restart
by Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall
The slogans NBA players are wearing on their jerseys can help lead students to understand the objectives of 18th century revolution and the incompleteness of attempts to secure the rights and dignity of all humanity.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
7/14/19
What the French Revolution teaches us about the dangers of gerrymandering
by Rebecca L. Spang
Our institutions must remain representative and responsive.
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2-16-16
How Historians Can Help Us Better Understand the Revolutions Taking Place Around the World
by Jack Censer
The key is to understand revolution as a global phenomenon.
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SOURCE: OZY
10-29-15
How the French Revolution Gave Birth to the Third World
by Pooja Bhatia
The term is still bandied about, but what does it mean?
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SOURCE: Times Literary Supplement
9-17-15
University of Kansas historian Jonathan Clark says Thomas Paine didn't write the account of the French Revolution included in the Rights of Man
by Jonathan C. Clark
Who did? The Marquis de Lafayette, with whom Paine boarded for a time.
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2-22-15
3 Lessons from the French Revolution European Policymakers Should Keep in Mind
by Rebecca L. Spang
The moment has come to diversify our analogy portfolio to include the French Revolution if we are to understand the Euro crisis.
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SOURCE: Atlantic
11-17-14
This is how kids are learning the history of the French Revolution now (video)
by Kabir Chibber
Let Them Play Assassin's Creed? With sympathetic noblemen and bloodthirsty common folk, the French Revolution-set Unity is re-igniting an historic debate over the period's heroes and villains.
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11-30-14
This Ghost Story Puts the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror in a New Light
by Ronen Steinberg
The Reign of Terror (1793-4) was an event of mass violence in the middle of the French Revolution. Tens of thousands of people were executed and hundreds of thousands were imprisoned.
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SOURCE: Fast Company & Inc
10-22-14 (accessed)
This company claims its video games about the French Revolution are accurate
Trois-Rivieres history professor Laurent Turcot sees the potential for video games to introduce students and others to how people lived in the past.
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Understanding Modern Violence Through the Lens of the Reign of Terror
by Jack Censer
One of the most stimulating books I have read in some time is Sophie Wahnich’s In Defense of the Terror: Liberty or Death in the French Revolution (published in 2003, but in English 2012). But it’s not the writing (which is murky) or its purpose (with which I generally disagree) but its viewpoint on Terrorism that can be instructive.In fact, this little book is an apologetic for the Terrorists in the French Revolution. And its value is that in associating herself so clearly with her subject, she does see them much as they saw themselves. In short, Wahnich argues that the Terrorists were motivated by the “dread” that they felt after the assassination of Marat. They then had acted to protect the purity and integrity of the “sacred” revolution that they had made to affirm the political equality of all. More originally, Wahnich also claims that the mechanism of the Terror led to more incarcerations than executions and that its organizational existence at least put limits on popular “enthusiasm.” In sum, the Terrorists were justified and their leadership contained excesses.