#if anyone in the frev community has their own favourite books please share | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

theorahsart · 4 months

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I’ve been happily dragged into the French Revolution, do you have any recommendations on where to start learning about this??? My brain doesn’t hold French names very well so I literally only know Robespierre and the dude that got killed in the bath

OH NO my enthusiasm has caught on, welcome to the insane drama that is French Revolution 😆

So if you're able to listen to podcasts, I feel like Grey History is a good place to start because it paints a really good picture of the situation, culture and feelings of the public leading up to the revolution.

It then delves in a straightforward timeline into the various events during the revolution and gives all the different points of view from each side (there's so many different 'sides' it's a lot like modern day politics where everyone is quite divided in their motivations).

So I feel like it's a good starting point before going into the many books, that in contrast tend to look at more individual moments without giving much overall context.

If you'd prefer reading books to listening, I'm reading currently 'Liberty or Death' by Peter McFee which also (so far, I haven't finished it) feels also like something that is painting a good overall picture in a straightforward timeline, and giving loads of cultural context that helps you understand various people's motivations and actions.

My favourite book in English that I've read so far is 'Twelve Who Ruled'- but it's very specific to the one 'reign of terror' year which is pretty far along in the first part of the revolution. But I think I would recc reading this anyway- you might not understand all the context but it's so riveting I think it helps you see why the topic and people involved are so fascinating.

As I'm not an academic/easily remembers facts kind of person, I really like that it so vividly painted a messy situation in a story telling kind of way, without being particularly biased to any side. Each politicians very different personality shines through, which is one element of Frev that makes it so interesting. It also does a great job of sharing in this story telling way, the overall culture at the time, psychology/sociology of the public and individuals, and various messy af situations that had to be dealt with.

It basically breaks down really well something horrific and complicated so that you understand how it came to be that way, and how people ended up making the decisions they made. Also, SO much drama in this one year, so many friendships broken down, so much back stabbing lol

Outside of that, I think actually the online community is really amazing and there's so many people on here translating stuff into English and answering questions to info that is normally scattered across several books/archival information, and then these amazing ppl just like bring it together in Tumblr posts. Looking through the Frev tag is a good way to piece together all the various details when you're just starting out.

#if anyone in the frev community has their own favourite books please share #frev #french revolution #frev community

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