Micah Alpaugh argues that the forgotten actors in the French Revolution are the French people themselves. Sure, are numerous ways in which we today recall the French Revolution – Enlightened ideals, the executions of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the Terror of 1794, the Directorate, the intrigues of Napoleon – but often forgotten are the people, their gripes, and their movement, especially in the formative years of 1788 and 1789. 

In The People’s Revolution of 1789 (Cornell UP, 2024), Paris and the provincial France come alive. The Third Estate led the way, not the philosophes, not Court intrigues and empty treasury accounts, but a true desire for reform. Alpaugh’s work clearly shows the people’s desire to break the yoke of feudalism in the provinces, the hope of ending authoritarian decrees, the eagerness toward liberty, and the birth of a new France at home and in its colonial possessions.

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