Sans-Culottes

"This is intellectual history as free jazz. Sonenscher rips and riffs through the links to be made between all manner of ideas across several generations of salon conversation and erudite writing... This work's contribution ... to illuminating the complexity of eighteenth-century French intellectual history cannot be gainsaid."--David Andress, Times Literary Supplement "Close attention to his text will be repaid with a deepened awareness of the variety and power of the political writing in circulation in the late monarchy. He succeeds completely in establishing that political life was in most respects richer and more full of nuance than we might imagine."--James Livesey, American Historical Review "Sans-Culottes is a challenging read, not least because of its style and structure. Sonenscher juggles a dizzying array of primary sources... That said, the payoffs to reading this book are tremendous."--Charles Walton, H-France Forum "Sonenscher is brilliant... He is equally path-breaking... Sonenscher provides the most convincing account of the nature of the ideological divisions of 1789?91... In providing an overview ... Sonenscher shows what has been missed by historians of the French Revolution."--Richard Whatmore, Reviews in History "Sonenscher's insights into the moral and economic history of prerevolutionary France are wide ranging and extremely well documented; few can rival his breadth."--Julia V. Douthwaite, Eighteenth-Century Studies "As someone who has transformed himself during this period from a distinguished social historian to a leading expert on eighteenth century political thought, Sonenscher's professional career mirrors the trajectory scholarship of the Revolution has taken in his lifetime... [T]he new book is the result of twenty-five years' patient advancing of what it is possible to know about the French Revolution and, at its heart, the elusive sans-culottes."--Ruth Scurr, Modern Intellectual History "[T]he author succeeds in forcing the reader outside the comfort zone of more traditional approaches in an intellectual tour de force that no historian of the Revolution can safely ignore."--Hugh Gough, Historian "Sonenscher's opera magna constitute an enormous achievement. Revealing a new face of eighteenth-century intellectual history and recovering a myriad of forgotten works, they are sure to be read--indeed to be used as references--for years to come."--Carolina Armenteros, French History