Citizens

Why it’s on the list: Schama’s bicentenary chronicle, written against the Marxist reading: the Revolution not as a rising bourgeoisie but as a reforming, modernising old regime that talked itself into violence, with the Terror present from the beginning rather than arriving as a deviation.

Where I heard about it

• The replies to @typesfast — named in the thread asking “What’s the best history book you’ve read?” (June 2025), as “Citizens — Simon Schama (on the French Revolution)”; the full set of replies is on What’s the best history book… (tweet).

Connections

• Napoleon — what the Revolution produced.
• Power — Schama’s argument is about how violence became the Revolution’s method rather than its accident.
• Napoleon’s Master — Talleyrand’s route through the same years, named in the same thread.
• What’s the best history book… (tweet) — the thread this recommendation came from.