Non-Violence and the French Revolution

"Historians of the French Revolution have traditionally emphasised the centrality of violence to revolutionary protest. However, Micah Alpaugh reveals instead the surprising prevalence of non-violent tactics to demonstrate that much of the popular actiontaken in revolutionary Paris was not in fact violent. Tracing the origins of the political demonstration to the French Revolutionary period, he reveals how Parisian protesters typically tried to avoid violence, conducting campaigns predominantly through peaceful marches, petitions, banquets and mass-meetings, which only rarely escalated to physical force in their stand-offs with authorities. Out of over 750 events, no more than twelve percent appear to have resulted in physical violence at any stage. Rewriting the political history of the people of Paris, Non-Violence and the French Revolution sheds new light on our understanding of Revolutionary France to show that revolutionary sans-culottes played a pivotal role in developing the democratically oriented protest techniques still used today"--

Auteur

Micah Alpaugh is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Central Missouri, after also having taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Mount Allison University and University of California, Irvine. Winner of a national dissertation award from French Historical Studies, he has also published articles in the Journal of Social History, French History, Annales historiques de la Révolution française, and European History Quarterly.

Texte du rabat

Challenging scholarly emphasis on French Revolutionary violence, this book instead examines the prevalence of peaceful, democratic methods in Parisian protest.

Résumé
Contesting the centrality of violence in the French Revolution, Micah Alpaugh reveals instead the prevalence of non-violent tactics among the sans-culottes of Paris. Non-Violence and the French Revolution explores the rise of modern democratic protest methods and offers new interpretations of several of the French Revolution's most important events.

Contenu

Introduction; 1. Marching in Paris, from the Old Regime to the Revolution; 2. Political demonstrations and the politics of escalation in 1789; 3. From rapprochement to radicalism, 1790 1; 4. War, collaborative protest, and the 1792 Republican movement; 5. Fraternal protest in a time of terror, August 1792 September 1793; 6. Reasserting collective action: 1794 5; 7. Moderate and conservative marches in Revolutionary Paris; Conclusion; Appendix: Parisian protests, 1787 95; Bibliography; Index.