Of course this is a subjective question and I would love to hear from an expert on this particular topic for what they think is the best academic history, but Carlyle's The French Revolution: A History remains one of the most extraordinary works of historical literature ever produced in the English language. I suspect my comment may be subject to deletion but I recommend it whole heartedly for how thought provoking it is regardless of strict accuracy (it being written quite soon after the events.)

I depends - general overview ones with very little analysis can be had by the bucketful. But the really good ones tend to either slide into two camps - the revisionists and the Marxists (don't get your blood up, its not what it sounds like) whereby they posit that the Revolution was slanted in favour of the bourgeousie or was it slanted in favour of the common man. Its very much a chicken & egg argument as historical evidence for both cases is very very convincing.

Simon Scharma's Citizen is a great read on the matter; it tends to be quite moderate in its views.