This volume, comprising Part I of the authors classic work Revolutionary France 1770-1880, offers a vivid narrative and radical reinterpretation of the years surrounding the momentous events of 1789 and their aftermath. During this period there were not one, but two revolutions: by intent the first was egalitarian, the second- Bonapartes authoritarian. The tension between the two characterized the period and was to shape the Republic that eventually emerged from the ruins of the ancien regime.

François Furet is Director of Studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, and Professor of History at the University of Chicago. He is considered throughout the world to be the most outstanding living historian of the French Revolution.