Vive La Revolution

by Mark Steel (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $3.40

  For most of us, the French Revolution has been reduced to jokes about Marie-Antoinette, guillotines and the Scarlet Pimpernel. But for Mark Steel the French Revolution was one of the most inspirational moments in human history - a moment when ordinary people changed the world and became extraordinary. It deserves better jokes than that. In this revolutionary new book, Steel banishes stuffiness from history, telling us what happened in France between the storming of the Bastille and the rise of Napoleon. VIVE LA REVOLUTION is an uproariously serious work of history - brilliantly funny and insightful, it puts the peculiarity of individual people back at the centre of the story.

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $3.25

  If real life can be funny, history should be doubly so. For Mark Steel, the French Revolution was one of the most inspirational moments in human history - a moment when ordinary people changed the world and became extraordinary. Here he strips away the layers of prejudice and preconception to be found in some historians' portraits of the revolutionaries - like Robespierre, Danton, de Sade, Tom Paine, Marat - to get to the people behind the stereotypes and the events behind the myths. This is a humorous and deadly serious account of the French Revolution: what happened, why, and how it could have happened to you. It's a book for anyone who's ever wanted to know what happened behind the storming of the Bastille and the guillotine, when a nation decided that things could only get better.