Symbols, Myths and Images of the French Revolution: Essays in Honour of James A. Leith ed. by Ian Germani, Robin Swales (review)

humanities 391 William Jones's `Hymn to Camdeo,' which Hamilton quotes; an obituary from the Gentleman's Magazine, attributed to Maria Edgeworth; and a selection of letters. Hamilton's work makes an interesting addition to the already available novels from the last decade of the eighteenth century, including those by Godwin, Wollstonecraft, Hays, and Inchbald. (MARTHA F. BOWDEN) Ian Germani and Robin Swales, editors. Symbols, Myths and Images of the French Revolution: Essays in Honour of James A. Leith Canadian Plains Research Center 1998. 342. $49.95 In 1960, James Leith completed his doctoral dissertation at the University of Toronto Department of History on the French painter Jacques Louis David. Leith was an early advocate of the study of culture in a historical rather than an aesthetic perspective. His own article provides a whimsical explanation of his respite in landscape painting from his family's puritanism , and thence to the study of art in historical context. Leith's first article (1959) was entitled `The Idea of Art as Propaganda during the French Revolution.' He had a long and productive career teaching at Queen's University and publishing primarily about the art and architecture of the French Revolution and on some other topics. His career coincided with a burgeoning interest in the cultural history of images, monuments, public spaces, and buildings in France during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The list of his numerous publications concludes this book, produced in his honour and derived from the proceedings of a colloquium held in September 1996 at the University of Regina. At first glance the collection seemed in some figurative way reminiscent of one of those trays of heterogeneous costume jewellery, medallions, bibelots, and prints to be found in the Paris Flea Market with a label such as 150F pièce. Sixty per cent of the papers given in Regina are reproduced here, that is twenty-three of thirty-eight. Some of those referred to in the text are missing (Parker). Some papers as printed refer for fuller information to book chapters or articles published subsequently. Some chapters written in English give citations in English, others in French with an English translation, others in French, and some chapters are written entirely in French. The volume is well illustrated, as one would expect in writings in honour of the leading Canadian exponent of the visual and symbolic as part of the history of the French Revolution. Some chapters where one would like very much to see illustrations, like the discussion by Parker of the construction of images of the Revolution in the movies, are without any. Some chapters, however, have nothing to do with the visual, like Hamm on Stendhal. Another (Perceval-Maxwell) has tables and graphs and a close discussion of the English seventeenth century to 392 letters in canada 1999 remind us that the search for a general theory of revolution blending population and economic trends is futile. Without mentioning every contributor, one can discern four major groupings of the chapters. The first is that of paintings, prints, and drawings (Reichardt, Hould, Duprat, Roberts, Govier). The second is architecture (Leith, Jourdan). The third is that of political and social history (Doyle, Harden, Klassen, Goodheart). The fourth group is made up of excellent chapters by Williams and Lary on, respectively, visual images of the Russian and Chinese revolutionary traditions, and an interesting discussion of the study of the French Revolution in China after 1968 (Gao Yi). Pekacz deals with eighteenth-century opera and the disputes over the merits of French and Italian musical conventions. Despite its variety (or rather because of it), this book provides many unexpected finds and tidbits. The profile feminized to resemble Maria Theresa but wearing the tiara of the doge Alvise IV Mocengo on a coin with the legend Respublica Veneta may well be the first known strike in monetary history of the Republic (Benzaken). There is an excellent article by Jonas on the political post-revolutionary uses of the symbolism of the Sacred Heart. The proceedings of the Colloquium present a variety of bibliographical references and much matter for reflection on future directions in the cultural history of the French Revolution and its echo in the world. (DAVID...