I'm interested in getting a better idea of how the French Revolution unfolded. Anyone have some recommendations of a book? I'd rather not slog through 10 volumes of something, though, so shorter is generally better.
I'm interested in a modern political interpretations of the events, and how they may have been fit into the context of enlightenment ideals, how the Revolution affected those and later revolutions, the development of left-right politics, and other philosophical type things. I'm also interested in the "anatomy of revolution" if you will - how do they get started? How do they unfold, and where do they go wrong?
I feel the French Revolution has a lot to teach on this kind of subject. Anyone have a solid book on the topic to recommend?
This is something I have struggled with since single volume histories about the Revolution are poppy in nature or have a glaring error in facts (such as Citizens by... Sharma?). I could recommend Jonathan Israel's Intellectual History of the French Revolution which focuses on the political and philosophical nature of the Revolution.
The third edition of Owen Connelly's The French Revolution and Napoleonic Era is a solid introductory work intended for undergraduate level instruction. One thing that sets Connelly apart from other books of this nature is that he treats the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era as a whole rather than just ending the story of the Revolution at Thermidor or Brumaire.
Another single volume is Lynn Hunt's Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution which emphasized the emergence of a new political culture during the Revolution. Hunt's book has become one of the foundational texts for Revolutionary studies since its publication in 1984, especially since she examines cultural history in ways that the prior historiography did not.