History 2P42: Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1815
Winter 2012
Art, Archaeology and Architecture (Erich Lessing Culture and Fine Arts Archives)
Professor McLeod
E-mail: [email protected]
Telephone: 905 6885550 ext. 3501
Office: GLN 241
Lecture: Monday 2-4, AS 204.
Teaching Assistant
Anna Jocsak: [email protected]
Office: GLN 240
Course Objectives and Outcomes
The course will investigate the French Revolution and its European impact emphasizing the
Revolution’s origins, its role in the development of European political culture and its impact on
the experience of women. Topics will include the origins of the Revolution, the failure of the
Constitutional Monarchy, the Counter-revolution, the Terror and the Napoleonic Regime.
Students by the end of the course should be able to:
outline the explanations offered by historians for the origins of the Revolution
understand how historians have interpreted the challenges faced by the revolutionaries
assess the effect of the Revolution on political culture, the church, women and the poor
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COURSE REQUIREMENTS
1.
Preparation for and active participation in weekly seminars is an important part of this course. All
students must read and be prepared to discuss some of the assigned readings every week.
2.
All students will lead one seminar.
3.
All students will write a book review of about 2,500 words in length of Charles Walton, Policing
Public Opinion in the French Revolution: The Culture of Calumny and the Problem of Free
Speech (Oxford, 2009). The review is due on 9 February 2012. Marks will be deducted at the
rate of 3% a day or weekend for late assignments and no papers will be accepted after 17
February 2012. Footnotes or endnotes must be used to provide references to pages in the book
or article. Use your own words to make your points and do not rely on quotes to do this.
4.
One final examination.
Calculation of Final Grade
Book Review
Seminar Leadership
Seminar Participation
Final Examination
30 %
10%
30%
30%
Plagiarism is the use of another's ideas without acknowledgment. Words taken from another must be set
off in quotation marks and the source cited. The course penalty for plagiarism is zero on the assignment.
Consult your university calendar for the further consequences of committing plagiarism at Brock.
REQUIRED TEXTS
Jeremy Popkin, A Short History of the The French Revolution
Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo, The French Revolution: A Document Collection
Charles Walton, Policing Public Opinion in the French Revolution: The Culture of Calumny and the
Problem of Free Speech (Oxford, 2009)
Recommended text: Mary Lynn Rampolla, A Pocket Guide to Writing in History
SEMINAR TOPICS AND READINGS
1. Week of January 9, 2012: Absolute Monarchy. Jeremy Popkin, A Short History of the French
Revolution, pp. 1-3. Examine the document Louis XV States the Principles of Absolutism. What do we
learn about the relationship between the monarch and the nation from this document?
2. Week of January 16, 2012: All students will read Policing Public Opinion in the French Revolution:
the Culture of Calumny and the Problem of Free Speech by Charles Walton, Introduction, chapters 14. Why did the revolutionaries want freedom of the press? How was freedom of the press viewed in the
ancien-régime? What limits were placed on it? Explore ideas about calumny and honour? What do the
cahiers de doléances tell us about views on freedom of the press at the beginning of the Revolution?
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3. Week of January 23, 2012. Walton, Policing Public Opinion, chapters 5-8 and Conclusion. Why did
calumny become a problem to many? What did the Law of Suspects say? How did Revolutionaries in the
Terror view freedom of expression? Explain their priorities? How do you explain the changes in attitudes
among men and among governments? What attitudes remained relatively constant?
4. Week of January 30, 2012: Violence in the Revolution. Examine the nature of crowd violence in
Early Modern Europe and in the French Revolution. How do historians study rioting? What evidence is
used? What role did food shortages play and what other factors are important? Why was crowd violence
so horrible and barbaric?
William Beik, “The Violence of the French Crowd from the Charivari to Revolution” Past and Present,
no. 197 (Nov. 2007), 75-110. (The article is available in full text on Scholars Portal E-Journals.)
http://proxy.library.brocku.ca/login?url=http://resolver.scholarsportal.info/resolve/00312746/v197
i0001/75_tvotfcfctr
Popkin, pp. 32-33.
Mason and Rizzo, pp. 67-75; 125-131; 174-177.
Further Reading:
Donald Sutherland, Murder in Aubagne: Lynching, Law and Justice during the French Revolution (2009)
5. Week of February 6, 2012: No Seminars. Book Reviews due.
6. Week of February 13, 2012: Revolution in the Colonies. What were the French colonies in the West
Indies and what role did colonial produce have in the French economy? What role did slavery play? How
did the colonialists react to the Revolution? How did the Constituent Assembly view the issue of race?
Why was there a slave rebellion? Who was Toussaint L’Ouverture?
Mason and Rizzo, 108-109; 208-214; 348-352.
Popkin, pp. 37-39.
David Geggus, “Racial Equality, Slavery and Colonial Secession during the Constituent
Assembly,” American Historical Review, Vol. 94, No.5, Dec. 1989, pp.1290-1308 (The
article is available in full text on JSTOR.)
http://proxy.library.brocku.ca/login?url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/1906352
Further Reading:
Laurent Dubois, A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean,
1787-1804.
Week of February 20, 2012 - Reading Week
7. Week of February 27, 2012: Political Culture in the French Revolution. Who were the sans culottes?
How did the revolutionaries attempt to regenerate the French people? Assess their attempts at doing this.
Why did they think it was possible? Why was it necessary? What role did denunciation play?
Popkin, p. 78
Mason and Rizzo, pp. 138-144.197-208; 248-262.
Colin Lucas, “The Theory and Practice of Denunciation in the French Revolution” The Journal of
Modern History, vol. 68, Number 4, December 1996, pp. 768-785 ( The article is available in full
text on JSTOR) http://proxy.library.brocku.ca/login?url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/2946719
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Further Reading:
Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture and Class
Laura Mason, Singing the French Revolution
8. Week of March 5, 2012: The War. Why was war declared? Who wanted war and why? Who was
Madame Roland? Who were the Girondins? What was Robespierre’s view on war and why did he think
this way? Explain Brissot’s view. How did the war affect the course of the Revolution?
Mason and Rizzo, pp. 157-173
Further Reading
David Bell, The First Total War
9. Week of March 12, 2012: The Terror. What was the Terror? What was the Law of Suspects? What
are other aspects of the Terror? Explain how the Terror could have happened. Could the Terror have been
avoided? What were the major threats that the government faced? How important is the war in
understanding the Terror? How did the Terror affect the subsequent course of the Revolution?
Popkin, pp. 82-83.
Mason and Rizzo, pp. 225-243.
Further Reading
David Andrews, The Terror
D. Greer, The Incidence of the Terror during the French Revolution: A Statistical Interpretation.
R. R. Palmer, The Twelve Who Ruled.
10. Week of March 19, 2012: Women and the Family in the French Revolution. Assess the ways in
which the French Revolution affected women and the family in French society. What was the political
role of women before the Revolution and during it? What was the importance of the family? How
connected were the institutions of monarchy and family? What did the philosophes think about the place
of women in society? What did the Declaration of the Rights of Man say about women? Explain the
March to Versailles. How did the revolutionary legislation affect women and the institution of the
family?
Popkin, pp. 60-61, 85.
Mason and Rizzo, pp. 83-87; 109-113; 244-248.
Susan Desan, “War between Brothers and sisters: Inheritances law and gender politics in revolutionary
France” French Historical Studies, vol. 20, 1997, pp. 597-634. (The article is available in full text
on JSTOR.) http://proxy.library.brocku.ca/login?url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/286913
Further Reading
Susan Desan, The Family on Trial in Revolutionary France.
Dominique Godineau, The Women of Paris and Their French Revolution
Roderick Phillips, Putting Asunder: A history of Divorce in Western Society, pp. 159-90; 256-75.
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11. Week of March 26, 2012: Directory. What challenges faced the Directors? How did they meet
these challenges? How was the Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1795 different from previous ones?
Why was there so much violence? How well did the judicial system work? Describe the array of political
opinions in these years. Who were the Jacobins? What did they want ? How well did they do in elections?
Why do historians regard Gracchus Babeuf as an important figure? Who were the royalists? What were
they seeking? Who supported them? Why did the Directory fall?
Popkin, 95-106.
Mason and Rizzo, 281-319.
Further Reading
Howard Brown, Ending the French Revolution: Violence, Justice and Repression from the Terror to
Napoleon
Isser Woloch, Jacobin Legacy: The Democratic Movement Under the Directory
12. Week of April 2, 2012: Napoleon. Explain Napoleon's rise to power. How important was the force of
his personality? It has been claimed that Romantic historians have misled us by focussing on Napoleon as
a military commander when his main achievement was the creation of a modern state where rational and
Enlightenment principles were applied. Do you agree? Examine his actions in a number of realms
including law, government, and the military. Who resisted the Napoleonic regime? Who supported it?
How did Napoleon's rise to power affect women? Why? How secure was his regime?
Popkin pp. 119-120; 126-127.
Mason and Rizzo, “Napoleon Closes the Revolution,” pp. 334-351
Isser Woloch, "Napoleonic Conscription: State Power and Civil Society", Past and Present, no. 111, May,
1986, pp. 101-129. (The article is available in full text on Scholars Portal E-Journals.)
http://proxy.library.brocku.ca/login?url=http://resolver.scholarsportal.info/resolve/00312746/v111
i0001/101_ncspacs
Further Reading on Napoleon
Isser Woloch, Napoleon and his Collaborators
Alan Forrest, Napoleon’s Men
Louis Bergeron, France under Napoleon.
LECTURE SCHEDULE
Read the pages indicated in Jeremy Popkin, A Short History of the French Revolution
.
The Origins of the French Revolution
Crisis in the French Monarchy
The Estates General The Victory of the Third Estate
National Assembly
The Fall of the Monarchy
The Republic
The Directory
French Revolution and Europe
Napoleon
Overview
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pp. 1-20
pp. 20-25
pp. 25-34
pp. 35-51
pp. 52-70
pp. 71-91
pp. 92-106
pp. 107-134
pp. 135-145