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Department of History Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 02139 (617) 253-4451 ravel@mit.edu |
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The French esteem the Revolution of 1789 to be the turning point in their national history; journalists, politicians, scholars, and others outside France have called this moment the birth of modern political culture. In this subject we will begin with a brief survey of French politics, culture and society in the century prior to the Revolution, emphasizing the reasons for the end of the Old Regime and the origins of the Revolution. Next, we will examine the turbulent decade of the 1790s, when the French experimented with a constitutional monarchy, a republic, a dictatorship by committee, and a parliamentary form of government, only to end in a military coup d'état staged by Napoléon Bonaparte and his supporters. In 1804, Napoléon crowned himself emperor (see the image by Ingres above), thus initiating the First Empire, which was characterized by relentless military campaigning abroad and the consolidation of certain legal and administrative reforms at home. Finally, we will consider the impact of the Revolution and its Napoleonic sequel in Europe and elsewhere, and we will discuss the ongoing influence of these events in the following two centuries.This subject is open to all interested undergraduates and graduate students; there are no prerequisites. It may be counted towards the concentration, the minor, or the major in History; in addition, one may use it to meet certain requirements in the French section of Course 21F.