Writers and Revolution
Intellectuals and the French Revolution of 1848

Explores the experience and impact of the 1848 French Revolution through the writings of nine European intellectuals, including Marx and Flaubert.

Jonathan Beecher (Author)

9781108842532, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 1 April 2021

494 pages
23.5 x 16.1 x 3.2 cm, 0.83 kg

'At the heart of (this book) is a simple but powerful idea: to follow nine contemporary intellectuals … into the revolution, link arms with them as they pass through its euphoria, confusion and violence, and track their steps as they re-emerge into the post-revolutionary world.' Christopher Clark, London Review of Books

The revolution of 1848 has been described as the revolution of the intellectuals. In France, the revolution galvanised the energies of major romantic writers and intellectuals. This book follows nine writers through the revolution of 1848 and its aftermath: Alphonse de Lamartine, George Sand, Marie d'Agoult, Victor Hugo, Alexis de Tocqueville, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Alexander Herzen, Karl Marx, and Gustave Flaubert. Conveying a sense of the experience of 1848 as these writers lived it, this fresh and engaging study captures the sense of possibility at a time when it was not yet clear that the Second French Republic had no future. By looking closely at key texts in which each writer attempted to understand, judge, criticise, or intervene in the revolution, Jonathan Beecher shows how each endeavoured to answer the question posed explicitly by Tocqueville: Why, within the space of two generations, did democratic revolutions twice culminate in the dictatorship of a Napoleon?

1. Prologue
2. Lamartine, the Girondins and 1848
3. George Sand: 'The People' Found and Lost
4. Marie d'Agoult: A Liberal Republican
5. Victor Hugo: The Republic as a Learning Experience
6. Tocqueville: 'A Vile Tragedy Performed by Provincial Actors'
7. Proudhon: 'A Revolution Without An Idea'
8. Alexander Herzen: A Tragedy Both Collective and Personal
9. Marx: The Meaning of a Farce
10. Flaubert: Lost Hopes and Empty Words
11: Aftermath, Themes and Conclusion.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], French Revolution [HBTV2], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], European history [HBJD]