The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution by Timothy Tackett (review)

Reviews 227 Jacques le Fataliste” (42). For those who are well-versed in Serresian philosophy, Le gaucher boiteux still has a lot to offer. It is in this text that Serres fully develops his biosemiotic vision of communication. This new essay makes an invaluable contribution to the emerging cross-disciplinary field of biosemiotics. The rigorous nature of Serres’s biosemiotic, communicative theories demonstrates that his philosophy is just as bold and cutting-edge as it has always been. Mississippi State University Keith Moser Tackett, Timothy. The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2015. ISBN 978-0-674-73655-9. Pp. 463. $35. The bicentennial of the French Revolution in 1989 provoked considerable debate among historians as well as the general public about how to consider the Terror: as a violent but inevitable aberration in the glorious narrative of the emancipation of the French people under the aegis of Enlightenment ideals of freedom and democracy,or as an integral part of a revolutionary dialectic that also drew on the Enlightenment ideals of absolute equality fostered by Rousseau’s most notorious disciple,Robespierre?Andrzej Wajda’s film Danton had asked the same question back in 1983, inviting spectators to move beyond the inevitably reductionist framework of conventional wisdom and launching a public debate. Only in the former Soviet Union did Robespierre enjoy a favorable reputation. Elsewhere his legacy was condemned and his person shunned as a villain who almost destroyed the Revolution by paving the way for a political reaction that led to the rise of Napoleon. Tackett does not alter our understanding of the Terror significantly.On the one hand,he notes the“strange bi-polarism of the Revolution”(2), which led partisans of the “true” revolution to resort to terror to combat interior and exterior enemies; on the other hand, with François Furet, Tackett acknowledges that violence and terror in the name of an overarching political ideal were an integral part of the Revolution early on,that a small but determined number of revolutionaries inspired by Rousseau from the outset had sought to “remake society from top to bottom on the basis of reason”(2). Drawing on recent scholarship, Tackett sets out to understand why the “terrorist” [sic] became a terrorist and shows the “unpredictable” (3) nature of the Terror, which can be explained as much by traditional explanations, such as the gradual breakdown of authority, civil war, foreign invasion, religious schism, the flight of the king,economic chaos,and hoarding,as by psychological and emotional factors,such as “fear, suspicion, and anger”(6) and rumor-mongering. To bolster his case for the latter, Tackett engages in mentalité history, using as his sources a plethora of contemporary voices, ranging from eyewitnesses to authors of diaries. However, such sources are not always accurate and frequently demonize enemies. Moreover, they are bourgeois and mirror class prejudice. Still, Tackett’s rationale for selecting diaries and letters is sound. Memoirs are unreliable because they are written a long time after the events they describe. Letters usually are more authentic, as are eye-witness accounts, such as LouisS ébastien Mercier’s“ethnohistories”of Paris on the eve of the Revolution.The Terror had multiple causes. Tackett offers a persuasive account of the Terror as well as a fast-paced and gripping story. The book focuses on events leading up to the Terror but does cover the overthrow of Robespierre and the Thermidorian reaction as well and, thankfully, refrains from passing judgment. It is not for the historian to moralize and perhaps that is the greatest lesson that Tackett has to offer. St. Norbert College (WI) Tom Conner Yates, Alexia M. Selling Paris: Property and Commercial Culture in the Fin-de-Siècle Capital. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2015. ISBN 978-0-674-08821-4. Pp. 353. $50. The panoramic views of Paris often seen in films, travel guides, and photos of the City of Lights show many miles of quintessential Parisian apartment buildings— elegant and aesthetically pleasing with stone façades, ornate balcony grates, and tall windows. Most historical accounts of the construction of these buildings and the broad boulevards, upon which they face, attribute them to the renovation projects...