Unnecessary revolution

The case of France

Bibliographic Data

ID4180520
AuthorsW G Runciman (corresponding author)
Year1983
Volume24
Issue2
Pages291-318
Publication date1983-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEuropean Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-9756 • E-ISSN: 1474-0583
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0003975600004082
OpenAlexW2029979780
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited22

For all the controversy that continues to surround the course of events in France between the summoning of the Estates-General and the fall of Brienne in the summer of 1788 and the summoning of the Convention and the fall of the monarchy in the summer of 1792, it is nowhere in dispute that they constituted a revolution- that is, in the definition of theOxford English Dictionary (s.v.III.7), 'a complete overthrow of the established government in any country or state by those who were previously subject to it'. Indeed, they constituted such an overthrow in a manner and to a degree without precedent. Neither the English Civil War (and still less the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688) nor the War of American Independence are properly comparable with them. In calling the French Revolution 'unnecessary', therefore, I am not seeking to minimize either its importance (of which more later) or its novelty. Nor do I maintain that the problems by which theancien régimewas confronted could have been resolved by any scheme of reform which would have preserved intact the existing forms and distribution of power. I mean only that the Revolution was unnecessary in two different senses: first, it only took place as it did because of a wholly unfore-seeable series of coincidences; second, its eventual outcome in terms of the broad difference in social structure between eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century France would have happened in any case. These assertions, moreover, are not-or so I hope to show-as controversial as they may seem: properly stated, both should be equally acceptable to 'orthodox' and 'revisionist' historians alike

Ancien regime · Convention · Economic history · English Revolution · French revolution · Government (linguistics) · Independence (probability theory) · Monarchy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Spanish Civil War · State (computer science) · Subject (documents) · European Political History Analysis · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Philosophy

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