Additional information
by Timothy Tackett (Author)
Winner of the Leo Gershoy Prize from the American Historical Association, 1998, for the best book in Early Modern European History.
Timothy Tackett's Becoming a Revolutionary revisits one of the most controversial moments in history: the beginning of the French Revolution. How did it arise? Why did French men and women become revolutionaries? To answer these questions, Tackett focuses on the experiences of the 1200 members of the first French National Assembly. Drawing upon on a wide range of sources, including contemporary letters and diaries, Tackett shows that the deputies were a group of practical men, whose ideas were governed more by concrete subjects than by abstract philosophy. Though it may seem surprising now, most of the deputies were actually in support of the king. Instead of being initiated as a result of a specific ideology founded on Enlightenment principles, the ideas that eventually led to the French Revolution were, instead, a direct result of the actual process of the Assembly.
First published in 1996 and hailed as an "exemplary product of the historian's craft," Becoming a Revolutionary is now available in paperback for the first time.
Back Jacket
Here Timothy Tackett tests some of the diverse explanations of the origins of the French Revolution by examining the psychological itineraries of the individuals who launched itthe deputies of the Estates General and the National Assembly. Based on a wide variety of sources, notably the letters and diaries of over a hundred deputies, the book assesses their collective biographies and their cultural and political experience before and after 1789. In the face of the current "revisionist" orthodoxy, it argues that members of the Third Estate differed dramatically from the Nobility in wealth, status, and culture.
Author Biography
Timothy Tackett is Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. His most recent book is When the King Took Flight (2003).
