The French Revolution

Film clips: La Marseillaise (1938), Tale of Two Cities (1935), and Danton (1982)

Causes of the Revolution:

• Geopolitical challenges: the cost of war for hegemony and empire
  • Insufficiencies of state finance and bankruptcy
  • The problem of privilege
• The Failure of fiscal and political reform
• The Enlightenment and the growth of public opinion and criticism
• Economic crisis and hardship: impact on ordinary people

Consquences of the Revolution

• The creation of modern democratic republicansim (desacralization of kingship)
• The establishment of the concept and model of modern revolution
• The strengthening of the central state
• The emergence of the nation-state
• The emergence and strengthening of the propertied middle class or bourgeoisie as a part of the social and political elite.

A fuller treatment of the causes, process, and consequences of the French Revolution with examples of differing interpretations of its meaning and significance by various historians.