Robespierre was only 36 when he died, sent to the guillotine where he had sent thousands ahead of him. Only a few months before, this pale and fragile man, formal, anxious to the point of paranoia, steeled by deep-held principles, had held centre place in the new Festival of the Supreme Being, wearing his sky-blue coat and decreeing a new religion for France. Robespierre and the Revolution were inseparable- a single inflexible tyrant. But what turned a shy young lawyer into the living embodiment of the Terror at its most violent? Admirers called him 'the great incorruptible'; critics dubbed him a 'monster', a 'bloodthirsty charlatan'; even his friends found him hard to understand.Ruth Scurr sheds a dazzling new light on this puzzle, tracing Robespierre's life from a troubled childhood in provincial Arras to the passionate idealist, fighting for the rights of the people, and sweeping on to the implacable leader prepared to sign the death warrant for his closest friends. No backdrop can match the French revolution- it burns with human interest. As Scurr says, 'More than haunting, it obsesses, because it will not lie down and die'. Her brilliant, probing narrative brings the Revolution and its chilling hero to fiery life once again, helping us to understand how ideals and fanaticism can so often go hand in hand, as they still do today.
Robespierre was only 36 when he died, sent to the guillotine where he had sent thousands ahead of him. Only a few months before, this pale and fragile man, formal, anxious to the point of paranoia, steeled by deep-held principles, had held centre place in the new Festival of the Supreme Being, wearing his sky-blue coat and decreeing a new religion for France. Robespierre and the Revolution were inseparable- a single inflexible tyrant. But what turned a shy young lawyer into the living embodiment of the Terror at its most violent? Admirers called him 'the great incorruptible'; critics dubbed him a 'monster', a 'bloodthirsty charlatan'; even his friends found him hard to understand.Ruth Scurr sheds a dazzling new light on this puzzle, tracing Robespierre's life from a troubled childhood in provincial Arras to the passionate idealist, fighting for the rights of the people, and sweeping on to the implacable leader prepared to sign the death warrant for his closest friends. No backdrop can match the French revolution- it burns with human interest. As Scurr says, 'More than haunting, it obsesses, because it will not lie down and die'. Her brilliant, probing narrative brings the Revolution and its chilling hero to fiery life once again, helping us to understand how ideals and fanaticism can so often go hand in hand, as they still do today.
How idealism turned to blood- a powerful new portrait of the most enigmatic politician of all times, and a vivid re-reading of the turbulent French Revolution itself.
Born in 1971, Ruth Scurr is an historian of Political Thought, specialising in eighteenth-century France. She is an affiliated lecturer at the University of Cambridge, and is a regular reviewer for The Times and the Times Literary Supplement. This is her first book.
There is a dazzling light of intellect as much as a thunderous
darkness of reality in her fine, humanising portrait
*The Times, Ten Best Books of 2006*
Scurr has an important tale to tell, and she tells it
judiciously
*Sunday Times*
Ruth Scurr's aim, in this well written first book, is to provide an
accessible, up - to date biography that draws on all this work, and
represents Robespierre as a human being rather than as a monster of
legend. She succeeds impressively
*Sunday Telegraph*
This splendidly balanced account of an unbalanced mind proves that
there are monsters of virtue as well as monsters of vice
*Daily Telegraph*
It is judicious, balanced, and admirably clear at every point....It
is quite the calmest and least abusive history of the Revolution
you will ever read
*London Review of Books*
Engaging and insightful biography... Scurr writes with sensitivity
and clarity about this paradoxical individual
*Scotland on Sunday*
Ruth Scurr takes on one of the most enigmatic of historical figures
in this thoroughly researched, well-written biography
*Independent on Sunday*
Scurr brilliantly evokes the sheer speed and intensity of change
after the fall of the Bastille
*Guardian*
Fascinating, chilling meditation on good intentions twisted into
evil deeds
*Independent on Sunday*
This is a biography that will stimulate all those interested in the
subject of state terror
*The Times*
Maximilien Robespierre was an ambitious provincial lawyer whose political career came to epitomize the bloody excesses of the French Revolution. Few would argue that his commitment to egalitarian principles was anything less than genuine, but his intransigent commitment to these principles set the basis for a terror-based state whose legacy still haunts the postmodern world. Scurr (history, Cambridge) skillfully uses Robespierre's writings to provide insight into a complex personality of the man called the Incorruptible, who was kind and gentle in private life and a brutal infighter in the public arena. Scurr maintains that Robespierre's iron will sustained the Revolution during its most turbulent period but that within his fanaticism lurked the seeds of his demise. His Reign of Terror eventually devoured him. This is Scurr's first book, and one hopes that it is not her last. She evokes the temper of those times through the copious use of primary sources, and her characterizations of such personalities as Mirabeau, Marat, and Brissot are splendid. This is the best biography of the Incorruptible since David Jordan's The Revolutionary Career of Maximilien Robespierre over 20 years ago and is highly recommended for academic and public libraries.-Jim Doyle, Sara Hightower Regional Lib., Rome, GA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
There is a dazzling light of intellect as much as a thunderous
darkness of reality in her fine, humanising portrait * The Times,
Ten Best Books of 2006 *
Scurr has an important tale to tell, and she tells it judiciously
-- Lucy Hughes-Hallett * Sunday Times *
Ruth Scurr's aim, in this well written first book, is to provide an
accessible, up - to date biography that draws on all this work, and
represents Robespierre as a human being rather than as a monster of
legend. She succeeds impressively -- Munro Price * Sunday Telegraph
*
This splendidly balanced account of an unbalanced mind
proves that there are monsters of virtue as well as monsters of
vice -- Graham Robb * Daily Telegraph *
It is judicious, balanced, and admirably clear at every point....It
is quite the calmest and least abusive history of the Revolution
you will ever read -- Hilary Mantel * London Review of Books *
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
