Traumatic Politics

It takes considerable courage for a historian with a well-established conventional reputation to venture into interpretative realms which most others would instinctively avoid. Barry M. Shapiro has spent most of his scholarly career immersed in the history of the French Constituent Assembly of 1789–91. He has an intimate knowledge of the Assembly's proceedings, and of their impact beyond its walls. His study of revolutionary justice in Paris (1993) remains definitive. Throughout his work he has shown a generous readiness to accept the honest intentions and good faith of the men who attempted, during these momentous years, to recast and improve the institutions and political culture of their country. And yet he has remained puzzled by their inconsistencies. Ostensibly committed to establishing a constitutional monarchy based on collaboration, or at least creative friction, between Crown and legislature, at the same time they framed procedural obstacles which made such an outcome almost impossible to achieve. These contradictions were the product, the author concludes, of mood-swings which can only be explained in psychological terms

Courage · Economic Justice · Epistemology · Faith · Monarchy · Political science · Politics · Reputation · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · European Political History Analysis · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Philosophy