SCHOOL OF DIVINITY, HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY
ACADEMIC SESSION 2013-2014
HI4015 Special Subject The French Revolution
30 credits, 12 weeks
PLEASE NOTE CAREFULLY:
The full set of school regulations and procedures is contained in the
Undergraduate Student Handbook which is available online at your
MyAberdeen page. Students are expected to familiarise themselves not
only with the contents of this leaflet but also with the contents of the
Handbook. Therefore, ignorance of the contents of the Handbook will
not excuse the breach of any school regulation or procedure.
You must familiarise yourself with this important information at the
earliest opportunity.
COURSE CO-ORDINATOR/COURSE TEAM
Dr Elizabeth C. Macknight [email protected]
Discipline Administration:
Mrs Barbara McGillivray/Mrs Gillian Brown
50-52 College Bounds
Room CBLG01
01224 272199/272454
[email protected]
TIMETABLE
Seminars are held twice a week, specific details are on the Timetable.
Attendance is mandatory (and will be monitored – see the School’s
handbook on Class Certificates).
Students can view the University Calendar at
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/students/13027.php
COURSE DESCRIPTION
The French Revolution is among the most widely written about events in
history. It has long provoked passionate responses, not only in France
but also in many other parts of the world where people have lived
through massive political and social upheaval. For anyone who has ever
thought about what it means to transform society, the French Revolution
stands out as a compelling example of how such a transformation may
unfold in all its breathtaking complexity. This course follows a
chronological route through the various stages of the French
Revolution. In doing so, it explores central issues of contention in the
France of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It
introduces students to key lines of debate and to the historical origins of
particular ideologies.
INTENDED AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES
The course aims to provide a thorough grounding in the study of the
French Revolution and to promote independent research on this subject
as well as collaborative academic work with peers.
By the end of this course you will be able to:
 show familiarity with political, social, and cultural developments in the
history of revolutionary France;
 appreciate different historiographical approaches;
 evaluate the strength of an argument;
 identify and analyse a range of primary and secondary sources;
 articulate a convincing argument based on use of evidence.
LECTURE/SEMINAR PROGRAMME
Week 1
S1: The ancien régime: at court and in the countryside
S2: Challenges to the ancien régime
Week 2
S3: From Estates General to National Assembly
S4: Religion and reform
Week 3: Election of class representatives
S5: An end to monarchy
S6: War and emigration
Week 4
S7 Counter-revolution: the Vendée uprising
S8 Producing Terror
Week 5
S9: Maximilien Robespierre
S10: Thermidorian Reaction
Week 6: Class meeting
S11: Civic culture
S12: Rural life: change and continuities
Week 7
S13: France’s archives and the French Revolution
S14: Practice exam
Week 8
S15: The Directory and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte
S16: Fighting for freedom in the colonies
Week 9:
S17: Family strategies and the law
S18: Memories and commemoration
Week 10: Course evaluation form exercise
S19: Historical debates – focus on class
S20: Historical debates – focus on gender
Week 11:
S21: Revision and feedback on practice exam
S22: Class debate
Week 12: No classes
SEMINAR READINGS
Selected readings are available for download or web access on
MyAberdeen
For each seminar you will be expected to read the primary and core
secondary sources. The readings will be divided up prior to the seminar,
and you will have responsibility for particular texts, but you certainly
should not limit yourself to those. An extensive knowledge of primary
and secondary sources is indispensable. Each topic will be
introduced by two members of the class making a presentation as a
team. The remainder of the session will comprise discussions arising
from the presentation.
Week 1 S1: The ancien régime: at court and in the countryside
No readings set
Week 1 S2: Challenges to the ancien regime
primary
Extract from A Treatise on Orders
The Parlement of Paris
Preface to the King’s Accounts
Extract from The Spirit of Laws
Extract from The Nobleman
Extract from The Social Contract
The Noailles Affair
Extract from Paris Scenes
in Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo, The French Revolution: A Document
Collection (Boston, 1999), pp. 16–48.
secondary
Baker, Keith M., Inventing the French Revolution (Cambridge, 1990)
Bossenga, Gail, The Politics of Privilege: Old Regime and Revolution in
Lille (Cambridge, 1991)
Doyle, William, Old Regime France (Oxford, 2000)
Hardman, John, Overture to Revolution: The 1787 Assembly of
Notables and the Crisis of France’s Old Regime (Oxford, 2010)
Lefebvre, Georges, The Coming of the French Revolution trans. R. R.
Palmer (Princeton, 1947)
Van Kley, Dale, ed. The French Idea of Freedom: The Old Regime and
the Declaration of Rights of 1789 (Stanford, 1994)
Week 2 S3: From Estates General to National Assembly
primary
Letter from the King for the Convocation of the Estates General at
Versailles
Extract from What is the Third Estate?
Cahiers de Doléances
The Declaration of the National Assembly
The Tennis Court Oath
Louis XVI at the Royal Session
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
The National Assembly Decrees the Enfranchisement of Free Men of
Colour
Olympe de Gouges’ Declaration of the Rights of Woman
in Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo, The French Revolution: A Document
Collection (Boston, 1999), pp. 101–13.
secondary
Crook, Malcolm, Elections in the French Revolution: An Apprenticeship
in Democracy, 1789–1799 (Cambridge, 1996)
Hampson, Norman, Danton (New York, 1978)
Jones, Peter, Reform and Revolution in France: The Politics of
Transition, 1774–1791 (Cambridge, 1994)
Tackett, Becoming a Revolutionary: The Deputies of the French
National Assembly and the Emergence of a Revolutionary Culture
(Princeton, 1996)
Week 2 S4: Religion and reform
primary
Debate on Religious Freedom
Petition by the Jews
The Debate over the Civil Constitution of the Clergy
in Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo, The French Revolution: A Document
Collection (Boston, 1999), pp. 98–101, 105–8, 144–52.
AND
The debate on Church reform, May 1790
Decree on the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, 12 July 1790
The clerical oath
Papal bull Charitas, 13 April 1791
in Philip G. Dwyer and Peter McPhee, eds, The French Revolution and
Napoleon: A Sourcebook (London, 2002), pp. 43–50.
secondary
Desan, Suzanne, Reclaiming the Sacred: Lay Religion and Popular
Politics in Revolutionary France (Ithaca, 1990)
Gibson, Ralph, A Social History of French Catholicism, 1789–1914
(London, 1989)
Jaher, Frederic Cople, The Jews and the Nation: Revolution,
Emancipation, State Formation, and the Liberal Paradigm in
America and France (Princeton, 2002)
McManners, John, The French Revolution and the Church (New York,
1970)
McManners, John, French Ecclesiastical Society under the Ancien
Régime (Manchester, 1960)
Tackett, Timothy, Religion, Revolution, and Regional Culture in
Eighteenth-Century France: The Ecclesiastical Oath of 1791
(Princeton, 1986)
Van Kley, Dale, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution: From
Calvin to the Civil Constitution, 1560–1791 (New Haven, 1996)
Week 3 S5: An end to monarchy
primary
Declaration of the King Addressed to All the French About His Flight
from Paris
The Queen’s Farewells to Her Darlings of Both Sexes
The Brunswick Manifesto, 25 July 1792
Petition from the Paris Sections
Decree of the National Assembly for Suspending the King, 10 August
1792
Morrison’s Speech on the Trial of the King, 13 November 1792
Condorcet’s Speech on the Trial of the King, 3 December 1792
in Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo, The French Revolution: A Document
Collection (Boston, 1999), pp. 152–6, 167–73, 177–87.
AND
Indictment of Louis XVI, 11 December 1792
Louis XVI’s execution, 21 January 1793
A provincial response
in Philip G. Dwyer and Peter McPhee, eds, The French Revolution and
Napoleon: A Sourcebook (London, 2002), pp. 68–9, 76–9.
secondary
de Baecque, Antoine, The Body Politic: Corporeal Metaphor in
Revolutionary France, 1770–1800, trans. Charlotte Mandell
(Stanford, 1993)
Hardman, John, Louis XVI: The Silent King (London, 2000)
Hunt, Lynn, The Family Romance of the French Revolution (Berkeley,
1992)
Hunt, Lynn, ed. Eroticism and the Body Politic (Baltimore, 1991)
Jordan, David P., The King’s Trial: The French Revolution vs. Louis XVI
(Berkeley, 1979)
Patrick, Alison, The Men of the First French Republic: Political
Alignments in the National Convention of 1792 (Baltimore, 1972)
Ragan, Bryant T., Jr., and Elizabeth A. Williams, ed., Recreating
Authority in Revolutionary France (New Brunswick, 1992)
Vovelle, Michel, The Fall of the French Monarchy, 1789–1792
(Cambridge, 1984)
Walzer, Michael, ed., Regicide and Revolution: Speeches at the Trial of
Louis XVI (Cambridge, 1974)
Week 3 S6 War and emigration
primary
Robespierre’s Discourse on War delivered to the Jacobin Club
Brissot’s Third Discourse on the Necessity of War delivered to the
Jacobin Club
The Marseillaise
The September Massacres
in Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo, The French Revolution: A Document
Collection (Boston, 1999), pp. 160–70, 1.
AND
The renunciation of foreign conquests, 22 May 1790
The decree against émigrés, 9 November 1791
The declaration of war, 20 April 1792
Decree of La Patrie en danger, 11 July 1792
Decree conscripting 300,000 men
in Philip G. Dwyer and Peter McPhee, eds, The French Revolution and
Napoleon: A Sourcebook (London, 2002), pp. 60–3, 92–3.
secondary
Bertaud, Jean-Paul, The Army of the French Revolution: From CitizenSoldiers to Instrument of Power, trans. R.R. Palmer (Princeton,
1988)
Blanning, T.C.W., The Origins of the French Revolutionary Wars
(London 1986)
Blaufarb, Rafe, The French Army, 1750–1820: Careers, Talent, Merit
(Manchester, 2002)
Forrest, Alan, Conscripts and Deserters: The Army and French Society
during the Revolution and Empire (Oxford, 1989)
Forrest, Alan, The Soldiers of the French Revolution (Durham, 1990)
Greer, Donald, M. The Incidence of Emigration during the French
Revolution (Cambridge, 1951)
Lynn, John, The Bayonets of the Republic: Motivation and Tactics in the
Army of Revolutionary France, 1791–94 (Urbana, 1984)
Week 4 S7 Counter-revolution
primary
Petition from the Residents of Roscoff (Finistère)
Memoir of Madame de Sapinaud
Memoir of General Turreau
in Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo, The French Revolution: A Document
Collection (Boston, 1999), pp. 130–1, 218–19.
AND
The revolt breaks out, 5 March 1793
Guerilla tactics
The Massacre of prisoners
Turreau to the Minister of War, 19 January 1794
in Philip G. Dwyer and Peter McPhee, eds, The French Revolution and
Napoleon: A Sourcebook (London, 2002), pp. 97–101.
secondary
Godechot, Jacques, The Counter-Revolution: Doctrine and Action,
1789–1804, trans. Salvator Attanasio (Princeton, 1971)
Lewis, Gwynne, The Second Vendée: The Continuity of CounterRevolution in the Department of the Gard, 1789–1815 (Oxford,
1978)
Popkin, Jeremy D., The Right-Wing Press in France, 1792–1800
(Chapel Hill, 1980)
Sutherland, Donald, The Chouans: The Social Origins of Popular
Counter-Revolution in Upper Brittany, 1770–1796 (Oxford, 1982)
Sutherland, Donald, France 1789–1815: Revolution and CounterRevolution (London, 1985)
Tilly, Charles, The Vendée (Cambridge, 1964)
Wylie, Lawrence, Chanzeaux: A Village in Anjou (Cambridge, 1966)
Week 4 S8: Producing Terror
primary
Definitions of the Sans-Culotte, the Moderate, and the Aristocrat
Petition from the Revolutionary Republican Women to the National
Convention
Constitution of Year I
Instituting the Terror
The Law on Suspects
Concerning Arbitrary Measures and Arrests
Barère’s Report on the Maximum
Law of 22 Prairial Year II
in Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo, The French Revolution: A Document
Collection (Boston, 1999), pp. 197–9, 221–32, 236–43.
secondary
Baczo, Bronislaw, Ending the Terror: The French Revolution After
Robespierre (Cambridge, 1994)
Scott, William, Terror and Repression in Revolutionary Marseille
(London, 1973)
Week 5 S9: Maximilien Robespierre
primary
On the Right to Vote
On Capital Punishment
On War and Peace
On the Control of Food Supplies
On Property
On Revolutionary Government
On the Cult of the Supreme Being
Last Speech to the Convention
in Rudé, George, Robespierre (Englewood Cliffs, 1967), pp. 13–78.
[See MyAberdeen]
secondary
Hampson, Norman, The Life and Opinions of Maximilien Robespierre
(London, 1944)
Jordan, David P., The Revolutionary Career of Maximilien Robespierre
(Chicago, 1989)
Palmer, R. R., Twelve who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French
Revolution (Princeton, 1989)
Rudé, George, ed., Robespierre (Englewood Cliffs, 1967)
Thompson, J.M., Robespierre (Oxford, 1935)
Thompson, J.M., Leaders of the French Revolution (Oxford, 1948)
Week 5 S10: Thermidorian Reaction
primary
Tallien on the Terror, 28 August 1794
The Alarm of the People
The Prairial Uprising, May 1795
in Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo, The French Revolution: A Document
Collection (Boston, 1999), pp. 263–75
AND
The Gilded Youth Attack the Jacobin Club, November 1794
The de-martyrisation of Marat, February 1795
The White Terror in the Provinces, 1795
in Philip G. Dwyer and Peter McPhee, eds, The French Revolution and
Napoleon: A Sourcebook (London, 2002), pp. 115–19.
secondary
Gendron, François, The Gilded Youth of Thermidor, trans. James
Cookson (Montreal, 1993)
Lefebvre, Georges, The Thermidorians and the Directory: Two Phases
of the French Revolution (New York, 1964)
Lucas, Colin and Gwynne Lewis, ed., Beyond the Terror: Essays in
French Regional and Social History, 1794–1815 (Cambridge,
1983)
Woronoff, The Thermidorian Regime and the Directory 1794–99
(Cambridge, 1984)
Week 6 S11: Civic culture
primary
Discussion of the Le Chapelier Law
in Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo, The French Revolution: A Document
Collection (Boston, 1999), pp. 117–20.
AND
Le Chapelier Law, 14 June 1791
The celebration of revolutionary heroes
Uniform weights and measures
Dechristianisation in the provinces
Bouquier law on education, 19 December 1793
in Philip G. Dwyer and Peter McPhee, eds, The French Revolution and
Napoleon: A Sourcebook (London, 2002), pp. 32, 85–8.
secondary
Darnton, Robert and Daniel Roche, ed., Revolution in Print: The Press
in France (Berkeley, 1989)
Hunt, Lynn, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution
(Berkeley, 1984)
Margadant, Ted. Urban Rivalries in the French Revolution (Princeton,
1992)
Mason, Laura, Singing the French Revolution: Popular Songs and
Revolutionary Politics in Paris (Ithaca, 1996)
Ozouf, Mona, Festivals and the French Revolution, trans. Alan Sheridan
(Cambridge, 1988)
Woloch, Isser, The New Regime: Transformations of the French Civic
Order, 1789–1820s (New York, 1994)
Week 6 S12: Rural life: change and continuities
primary
Petition from the Inhabitants of the Somme to the National Assembly
Letter from the Community of Marnay to the National Assembly
Remarks on the Dialect and Mores of the People of the Countryside in
the department of Lot-et-Garonne
in Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo, The French Revolution: A Document
Collection (Boston, 1999), pp. 125–9, 132–7.
AND
The August 1789 Decrees on Feudalism
The Rural Code, September 1791
The abolition of feudalism, 25 August 1792
Land clearances in southern France, 1793
in Philip G. Dwyer and Peter McPhee, eds, The French Revolution and
Napoleon: A Sourcebook (London, 2002), pp. 24–5, 80–2.
secondary
Jones, Peter, The Peasantry in the French Revolution (Cambridge,
1988)
Lefebvre, Georges, The Great Fear of 1789: Rural Panic in
Revolutionary France, trans. Joan White (Princeton, 1973)
Lefebvre, Georges, ‘The Place of the Revolution in the Agrarian History
of France’ in Robert Forster and Orest Ranum, ed., Rural Society
in France: Selections from the Annales (Baltimore, 1977), pp. 31–
49.
Markoff, John, The Abolition of Feudalism: Peasants, Lords, and
Legislators in the French Revolution (University Park, 1996)
Plack, Noelle, Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution: Rural
Society and Economy in Southern France, c. 1789–1820
(Burlington, 2009)
Ramsay, Clay, The Ideology of the Great Fear: The Soissonnais in 1789
(Baltimore, 1992)
Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, The Fruits of Revolution: Property Rights,
Litigation, and French Agriculture, 1700–1860 (Cambridge, 1992)
Week 7 S13: France’s archives and the French Revolution
Readings to be advised and made available in class
Week 7 S14: Practice exam
Week 8 S15: The Directory and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte
primary
Napoleon Bonaparte, ‘The Italian letters’ addressed to Josephine,
Citizeness Beauharnais (1796)
in Frances Mossiker, Napoleon and Josephine: The Biography of a
Marriage (London, 1965), pp. 13–17. [See MyAberdeen]
AND
Bonaparte’s Proclamation to the French Nation, 10 November 1799
in Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo, The French Revolution: A Document
Collection (Boston, 1999), pp. 334–6.
AND
The Concordat, 10 September 1801
The Consulate for Life, 1802
Founding the Empire, 1804
Imposing the Code Napoléon on the Empire
in Philip G. Dwyer and Peter McPhee, eds, The French Revolution and
Napoleon: A Sourcebook (London, 2002), pp. 149–56, 165–8.
secondary
H-France Napoleon Forum: Click on the links to read essays by
Malcolm Crook, Isser Woloch, and Howard G. Brown (those with
some knowledge of French are encouraged to read the essay by
Annie Jourdan as well).
Crook, Malcolm, Napoleon Comes to Power: Democracy and
Dictatorship in Revolutionary France, 1795–1804 (Cardiff,
1998)
Lyons, Martyn, France under the Directory (Cambridge, 1975)
Woloch, Isser, Jacobin Legacy: The Democratic Movement under the
Directory (Princeton, 1970)
Week 8 S16: Fighting for freedom in the colonies
primary
Proclamation to the Slaves of Saint Domingue
Proclamation of 29 August 1793
Letter to General Laveaux
Freedom of the Negroes
Creole of Saint Domingue, My Odyssey
Proclamation to the Citizens of Saint Domingue
To Citizen Talleyrand, Minister of Foreign Affairs
To Consul Cambacérès
in Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo, The French Revolution: A Document
Collection (Boston, 1999), pp. 208–11, 348–9.
AND
Civil rights for free Blacks
An attack on the slave trade
in Philip G. Dwyer and Peter McPhee, eds, The French Revolution and
Napoleon: A Sourcebook (London, 2002), pp. 37–8.
secondary
Fick, Carolyn, The Making of Haiti: The Saint-Domingue Revolution
from Below (Knoxville, 1990)
Gaspar, David, and David P. Geggus, ed., A Turbulent Time: The
French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean (Bloomington,
1997)
Geggus, David P., Slavery, War, and Revolution: The British
Occupation of Saint-Domingue, 1793–1798 (Oxford, 1982)
James, C.L.R. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San
Domingo Revolution (London, 1980)
Week 9 S17: Family strategies and the law
primary
Reflections of a Good Citizen in Favour of Divorce
Decree Regulating Divorce
The French Civil Code
in Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo, The French Revolution: A Document
Collection (Boston, 1999), pp. 244–8, 340–7.
AND
Law on Inheritance, March 1790
in Philip G. Dwyer and Peter McPhee, eds, The French Revolution and
Napoleon: A Sourcebook (London, 2002), pp. 30–1.
secondary
Darrow, Margaret, Revolution in the House: Family, Class and
Inheritance in Southern France, 1775–1825 (Princton, 1989)
Desan, Suzanne, The Family on Trial in Revolutionary France (Los
Angeles, 2004)
Heuer, Jennifer, The Family and the Nation: Gender and Citizenship in
Revolutionary France 1789–1830 (Ithaca, 2005)
Phillips, Roderick, Family Breakdown in Late Eighteenth-Century
France: Divorces in Rouen 1792–1803 (Oxford, 1980)
Week 9 S18: Memories and commemoration
primary
A Chouan in Caen, 4 September 1797
A Jacobin in Lyon
On the True Cause of the Revolution, 1797
in Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo, The French Revolution: A Document
Collection (Boston, 1999), pp. 310–17.
AND
Baron Trouvé on southern peasants
The Marquise de La Tour du Pin on her family
Marie-Victoire Monnard on making ends meet
in Philip G. Dwyer and Peter McPhee, eds, The French Revolution and
Napoleon: A Sourcebook (London, 2002), pp. 202–5.
secondary
Cobb, Richard, Reactions to the French Revolution (London, 1972)
Hobsbawm, Eric. Echoes of the Marseillaise: Two Centuries Look Back
on the French Revolution (New Brunswick, 1990)
Kaplan, Steven L., Farewell Revolution: Disputed Legacies, France
1789/1989 (Ithaca, 1995)
Tocqueville, Alexis de. The Old Regime and the Revolution, trans. Alan
S. Kahan (Chicago, 1998)
Yalom, Marilyn, Blood Sisters: The French Revolution in Women’s
Memory (New York, 1995)
Week 10 S19: Historical debates – class
Baker, Keith, M., ‘On the Problem of the Ideological Origins of the
French Revolution’ in D. La Capra and S.L. Kaplan, ed., Modern
European Intellectual History: Reappraisals and New
Perspectives (Ithaca, 1982)
Blanning, T. C.W., The French Revolution: Aristocrats vs. Bourgeois?
(Basingstoke, 1987)
Cobban, Alfred. The Social Interpretation of the French Revolution 2
ed., with an introduction by Gwynne Lewis (Cambridge, 1999)
Furet, François, Revolutionary France 1770–1880 (Oxford, 1988)
Furet, François, Interpreting the French Revolution, trans. Elborg
Forster (Cambridge, 1981)
Maza, Sarah, The Myth of the French Bourgeoisie: An Essay on the
Social Imaginary, 1750–1850 (Cambridge, 2003)
Soboul, Albert, The Parisian Sans-Culottes and the French Revolution,
1793–4, trans. Gwynne Lewis (Oxford, 1964)
Soboul, Albert, The French Revolution, 1787–1799: From the Storming
of the Bastille to Napoleon, trans. Alan Forrest and Colin Jones
(London, 1989)
Week 10 S20: Historical debates – gender
Desan, Suzanne, The Family on Trial in Revolutionary France (Los
Angeles, 2004)
Fauré, Christine, Democracy without Women: Feminism and the Rise of
Liberal Individualism in France, trans. Claudia Gorbman and John
Berks (Bloomington, 1991)
Fraisse, Geneviève, Reason’s Muse: Sexual Difference and the Birth of
Democracy, trans. Jane Marie Todd (Chicago, 1994)
Godineau, Dominique, The Women of Paris and Their French
Revolution, trans. Katherine Streip (Berkeley, 1998)
Gutwirth, Madeleyn, The Twilight of the Godesses: Women and
Representation in the French Revolutionary Era (New Brunswick,
1992)
Hesse, Carla, The Other Enlightenment: How French Women Became
Modern (Princeton, 2001)
Hufton, Olwyn. Women and the Limits of Citizenship in the French
Revolution (Toronto, 1992)
Scott, Joan Wallach, Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the
Rights of Man (Cambridge, 1996)
Week 11 Revision session
GUIDE TO FURTHER READING
The selected works listed in this course guide provide a foundation from
which to explore the vast historical literature on the French Revolution.
In compiling this guide, the aim has been to provide some direction and
stimulus; however, the greatest rewards in study often come from
discoveries that you make yourself. There are no shortcuts to rigorous
research: motivation, discipline, and a regular investment of your time
are essential. Primary and secondary sources (in French and in English)
may be accessed in MyAberdeen, the University Library, the National
Library of Scotland, and via online databases. There are classic
interpretations of the French Revolution which you will need to read
carefully and reflect upon at length. You should take every opportunity
to browse in leading international journals where cutting-edge research
is published.
Recommended for purchase
The following two books contain primary sources in English translation
and we will be using them regularly in seminars:
Philip G. Dwyer and Peter McPhee, ed. The French Revolution and
Napoleon: A Sourcebook (London, 2002) [Available from
Blackwells]
Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo, The French Revolution: A Document
Collection (Boston, 1999) [Available from Blackwells]
Some general works and compilations not listed below in the
seminar readings
Daileader, Philip and Philip Whalen, French Historians 1900–2000: New
Historical Writing in Twentieth-Century France (Chichester, 2010)
[Biographical essays, some of which are about specialists of the
French Revolution]
Doyle, William, The Oxford History of the French Revolution (Oxford,
1989)
Kates, Gary, ed., The French Revolution: Recent Debates and New
Controversies (London, 1998)
McPhee, Peter, The French Revolution 1789–1799 (Oxford, 2002)
Vovelle, Michel, La Révolution française: images et récits 1789–1799
(Paris, 1986) [A marvellous resource if you are looking for
pictorial evidence]
Some key journals
American Historical Review
Economic History Review
Eighteenth-century Studies
English Historical Review
French History
French Historical Studies
French Politics, Culture and Society
Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques
The Historical Journal
Journal of Social History
Past & Present
On-line databases
Modern History Sourcebook
QML History E-Journals
Meta-Lib E-Resources
J-Stor
Some useful websites:
H-France contains links to the H-France archive of book reviews and
forum discussions
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
Test your geographical knowledge of France!
Liberty, Equality Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution
Electronic Enlightenment
The Marandet Plays
The Encyclopedia of Diderot and d’Alembert Collaborative Translation
Project
Révolution Française
ASSESSMENT
Assessment is based on:
 one written examination at 100% of the final assessment.
Click to view the discipline specific Common Assessment Scale (CAS)
descriptors.
ESSAY
Your 3,000-word essay is due Monday Week 8 not later than 12
noon. You must write on a topic agreed in advance with the course coordinator. It is expected that the essay will be submitted in wordprocessed format and must be accompanied by a bibliography and footor endnotes conforming to established academic conventions (see
below).
Essays will be returned with a mark taken from the Common Assessment
Scale with written comments. All essays will be returned individually,
providing you with the opportunity to discuss your essay, techniques of
essay writing, and other aspects of the course with your tutor. It is
assumed that you will use the select bibliography in this guide to assist
in constructing your own reading list.
CLASS PRESENTATION
In most seminars, students working in pairs will introduce the topic
through a brief presentation. Students are expected and encouraged to
discuss their presentation, in advance, with the course co-ordinator.
Everyone will read the assigned material for the presentation. Students
may make use of PowerPoint in their presentations, which should
provide the following:
 An overview of the topic under discussion
 Discussion of the main historiographical arguments concerning
that topic
 Consideration of the topic in the context of the course as a whole
You ought not only to summarize but also to present an argument within
your presentation. Presentations should last no more than 20 minutes
(which approximately equates to 2,000 words typed). Presentations,
along with essays, are essential preparation for the exam.
ASSESSMENT DEADLINE
Your 3,000-word essay is due Monday Week 8 not later than 12 noon.
Please find the discipline specific Common Assessment Scale (CAS)
descriptors in MyAberdeen.
SUBMISSION ARRANGEMENTS
The Department requires ONE hard and ONE electronic copy of all
assignments, as follows:
COPY 1:
One hard copy together with an Assessment cover sheet,
typed and double spaced – this copy should only have your ID
number CLEARLY written on the cover sheet, with NO name
and NO signature – and should be delivered to the History
Department [Drop-off boxes located in CB008, 50-52 College
Bounds].
COPY 2:
One copy submitted through Turnitin via MyAberdeen.
EXAMINATION
The duration of the exam is three hours.
Past exam papers can be viewed at
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/library/learning-and-teaching/for-students/exampapers/.