Evelyn Waddick is a junior studying History and Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies at William & Mary and the University of St Andrews. In this piece, she analyzes interpretations of the French Revolution from the 19th century to modern day to explore how institutional biases in historical writing change over time. Emotions and opinions easily guide the pen as writers produce everything from partial accounts of daily life in personal diaries to biased articles in newspapers. Taken to the academic level, such bias becomes less personal and more institutionalized when the historian interprets their subject. As the process of historical writing leads historians to narrow the scope of their work, they choose a theme to guide their research. This theme usually corresponds to a particular school of historiography, the focus of which influences which facts historians select to include in their research and conclusions. This “selection of facts...is the result of a choice, even though that choice is not an explicit one,” and in this way, history writing processes the past and creates biased, academic interpretations of collective memory. [1] While the process of writing history creates narratives defined by bias, it also encourages the proliferation of alternate interpretations of the same event. The ability of the historian to select facts and present specific narratives appears clearly throughout the historiography of the French Revolution, a topic on which an enormous amount of scholarship has and continues to be conducted. [2] The diversity and depth of academic discussion generated in this historiography provides an opportunity to observe how biases in history writing appear over time, and think critically about how the historian intentionally or inadvertently adopts bias over the course of writing. Through analyzing the development of French Revolution historiography then, this essay seeks to demonstrate that scholarly discourse treats but never fully heals the blemished historical record of its biases. Such discourse generates an increase in the volume of literature available on a given subject, refining histories by opening the historian’s mind to nuances; it also encourages historians to dilute the biases of their predecessors with their own work in the spirit of poststructuralism. Additionally, two types of authors across three different eras of French Revolutionary historiography will be identified, and the biases which arise from their proximity in time to the Revolution will be discussed. Beginning as soon as 1818 with the publication of Germaine de Staël’s Consideration of the principal events of the French Revolution and continuing through Alexis de Tocqueville’s 1856 work The Old Regime and the Revolution, the nineteenth century history of the French Revolution clung to the biases of living memory. [3] Characterized by its contribution to the anti-Bourbon politics of the early nineteenth century and interest in explaining why the Revolution occurred, histories written from Staël through Tocqueville typically articulate positive, Liberal views of the Revolution. [4] In this era immediately prior to and during the work of von Ranke, historical writing as it is known today was in its infancy. Private individuals wrote histories firstly to advocate a cause through a historical line of reasoning, and secondly to record the events of the Revolution and offer interpretations as to its significance. One such example of Revolutionary history “for a cause” is the work of Hippolyte Taine, who analyzed the Terror for political purposes: “it was heedless adherence to abstract ideology of democracy that had been responsible for rejection of royal proposals of June 1789 by the national assembly, fatally opening the floodgates to mob anarchy and terror.” [5] Seeking to provide a politically relevant answer to why the Terror occurred, Taine’s suggestion of excessive democracy as a culprit held weight, as he articulated this thesis during the early years of the Third Republic, and “until the Republic had weathered the crisis of its first decades, this interpretation hung over it like a pall.” [6] In this way, early authors like Taine who used history as evidence to support a political interpretation demonstrate a powerful application of biased histories, as through the selection of specific facts. Taine linked excessive democracy to terror, allowing the implications of this connection to escape from the historian’s box into society. However, political biases in French Revolutionary history is not limited to the nineteenth century, but are observable again in academic work generated during bicentenary celebrations in 1989, a discussion of which follows later in this essay. Historical writing on the Revolution from the nineteenth century also demonstrates how personal biases manifested and receded in early French Revolutionary historiography as elapsed time placed historians within or outside the era of their subjects. Although Staël created a history when she recorded the events of the Revolution, she biased her account when she included within it opinions on constitutional monarchy as a solution to the Revolution, and personal memories of her father as Financial Minister to Louis XVI. [7] Living before, during, and after the Revolution, Staël’s lifespan put her in contact with her subject matter, rendering her prone to writing history infused with firsthand biases. Such history is not without its uses however, as she was more directly exposed to the environment of the Revolutionary era than an author such as Tocqueville, who was born in 1805. Staël’s 1818 work may then be better regarded as a primary source, whereas Tocqueville’s Liberal history more appropriately forms the source material and basis of French Revolutionary historiography. The validity of his work as a history becomes further supported in the canon as it influenced future interpretations of the Revolution from writers such as Marx and Furet, as they actively chose to build upon Tocqueville. Following Tocqueville, a Marxist interpretation of the Revolution cropped up in the nineteenth century and established itself as the orthodox interpretation of Revolutionary events and significance until the revisionist era of the 1970s. [8] Critically, this Marxist orthodoxy took over French Revolutionary historiography during the century in which history solidified into a practicable, academic profession. As historians in the era of the Marxist interpretation wrote on an event distanced from their own lives, personal biases like those of Staël and academic biases like Tocqueville’s liberal emphasis on 1789 receded into the background. It was the biases of the Marxist interpretation which then ran rampant throughout the literature, as historians viewed the Revolution through a lens of class struggle and subsequently altered the biases of the history to accommodate a Marxist worldview. [9] In this manner, interpreting the French Revolution as a historian in the Marxist school of thought created an entirely new understanding of the Revolution as inherently bourgeois, an example of an emerging class moving to establish their capitalist system over the feudal one of the Old Regime. [10] Therefore, the narrative focus on class struggle as a driving force eclipsed the historical narrative of the nineteenth century, which sought to understand the Revolution in terms of a lack of and excess in democracy. [11] The Marxist interpretation of the French Revolution fit with wider trends in professional history writing during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and explained the Revolution in a way which enabled historians to develop straightforward lines of reasoning. [12] Previously difficult to explain moments and components of the Revolutionary period, such as the Terror and role of King Louis XVI, could suddenly be understood through the lens of a class struggle; the Terror became the result of proletariat anger following a fundamentally bourgeois revolution which deposed the King, who was too stupid to control the chaos. [13] However, by the 1960s the Marxist interpretation of the French Revolution began to crumble under pressure from the new biases of historians writing during the political climate of the cold war. [14] During this era of political strife between the Communist and Capitalist worlds, anti-Marxist revisionist histories appeared on English and American printing presses and academic journals where Marxist interpretations once reigned supreme. Even in France, a country where socialism remained popular, the academic work of Sorbonne scholars such as Georges Lebevre and Albert Soboul reacted to political pressures and moved away from the views of colleagues such as Jean Juares and Albert Mathiez, who cemented the Marxist interpretation of the Revolution in France in the 1920s and 30s. [15] In particular, the work of English scholar Alfred Cobban pushed anti-Marxist revisionist histories of the Revolution to the front of historical debate. Cobban’s 1955 The Myth of the French Revolution successfully convinced many of his colleagues that the idea of a capitalist bourgeoisie over throwing a feudal aristocracy was actually false, as he referred to empirical data to prove that only thirteen percent of the national assembly were involved in capitalist commerce, whereas two thirds practiced law for a living. [16] In this way, Cobban’s thesis posited that the Revolution ought to be attributed to bitterness from a middling class of lawyers and other office holders who coveted roles exclusive to the nobility, rather than a revolution of capitalists against a feudal regime. [17] Opening a new era of revisionist debate and historical record refinement by questioning the role of capitalism in the Revolution, Cobban naturally faced criticism. Charged with avoiding the core of the Marxist interpretation, the idea that “the events of 1789 originated in a conflict between the nobility and bourgeoisie,” historians moved to revise what Cobban did not by examining the bourgeoisie class versus the nobility. [18] They found that empirical evidence demonstrated that the bourgeois and the aristocracy were actually closer in character and lifestyle than the Marxist interpretation would allow, discovering that the bourgeoisie actually benefited from the same rights previously thought to be exclusive to the aristocracy. [19] In turn, an era of revisionist historians sought to counter the exaggerations prevalent in Marxist interpretations. Modern historians such as Furet ushered in such change, shifting the bias of Revolutionary history from social interpretations of 1789 to political and linguistic interpretations, successfully revitalizing an old topic and refining its biases with renewed historical debate. [20] Claiming that “scholarship, though indispensable to the historian’s work, is not an end in itself,” French revisionist historian Francois Furet demonstrated that new historical writings depend upon and work off of the theses of the old when he referred back interpretations of the Revolution from the nineteenth century in order to develop his own works. [21] More distant from the Revolution in time than Tocqueville and yet referring back to his works when developing revisionist interpretations, Furet incorporated the benefits of nineteenth century works in their proximity to the events of 1789 while sieving out the biases of that proximity, ultimately creating a revisionist history which could be called fairly balanced. Although revisionist histories are the most modern interpretations of the Revolution, and have the most source material to work with, it is important to recognize how the Revolution’s 1989 bicentennial capitalized off of revisionist biases during an era of heightened nationalism. “At once a scholarly enterprise and a political statement, a slightly uneasy mixture of analysis and celebration,” the bicentennial once again opened the topic of the Revolution to alternate interpretations and debates from differing perspectives. [22] Nationalism of 1989, Republican principles of 1789, and the events of the Revolution were specifically interpreted for political purposes as the French administration at the time sought to identify themselves with the positive political legacy of the Revolution. [23] Just as with Taine in the Third Republic, applying historical legacy to validate political culture demonstrates stands as one typical reason as to why history would be interpreted, and thus written, in a biased fashion. Over the course of more than two centuries, the historiography of the French Revolution has been written by private individuals such as Taine, Staël, and Tocqueville; theorists such as Marx; and professional historians such as Jures, Mathiez, Lefebvre, Soboul, Cobban and Furet. Ultimately, these authors in the historiography of the Revolution fall on “the historiographical spectrum” according to their biases regarding the Terror. [24] This strategy, proposed by revisionist Peter Davies, points to the fact that there is usually a key event in the history of a given topic so contentious that its various interpretations can be used to expose the biases inherent in a historian’s writing. As those writing in the early nineteenth century treated the Terror with caution, ruling it an episode of chaos which detracted from the political glory of the Revolution, modern audiences can conclude that the biases in this interpretation stem from the era’s interest in Liberal politics and reverence for enlightenment ideals. As the writers of the marxist interpretation saw significant proletariat action in 1793, their bias towards class struggle and raising up the individual worker appears as a theme. With the Revisionists, particularly Furet, the Terror became the result of “the language and culture of 1789,” not that of war and counterrevolution, indicating an analysis through the lens of popular culture and politics rather than one of militant class struggle. [25] Producing history writing rife with various biases as they interpreted the events of 1789 and 1793, the works of those authors and historians who contributed to French Revolutionary historiography demonstrate that writing regarded as circumspect and balanced today may be considered biased again in the future. Therefore, it is possible to write histories more balanced than previously dominant narratives, but as balanced histories are still interpretations of history, they still contain selection bias as historians focus on or omit facts. Therefore, it is not possible to interpret history without also engineering biases which will inevitably come under scrutiny by future reviews of historical literature. It is only possible to create impartial history writing when one writes an account that includes all historical facts, and does not interpret those facts. But the reality is that even if someone were to find, pick up and read such a dusty tome, certain facts would stick and fade in their memory, as the first step in the process of history writing is simply remembering and reflecting on the past. And an interpretation would begin to form amongst their thoughts, and they would pick up a pen… Notes
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Above: "Bookstore (Taliaferro Hall) - Interior," 1994-06, Special Collections: University Archives Photo Collection.
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