I’m not a trained historian (I received my B.S. in geology and spent my career in commercial banking). However, I grew up in Europe during the 1960s and developed a passion for history. I learned to write as a banker back in the “good old” days. I enjoyed it so much that I told myself, “One day, I'm going to write a book.” Well, that day came in Nashville when I was running a small company. Then I found Leonard Pitt’s book called Walks Through Lost Paris. As we walked through the streets of Paris, I turned to my wife and said, “I can write a book like this.” And so I did.
There has been much written about Maximilien Robespierre (in French and English).
I enjoyed Ms. Scurr’s biography because it is well-written, superbly researched, and represents a complete picture of the ruthless leader of the Jacobins and the French Revolution. The author paints her young bourgeois subject as the zealous revolutionary who demanded nothing less than complete devotion to Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. Responsible for the period we know as “The Terror,” Robespierre’s edicts were so severe that people lost their heads if even suspected of a “crime.”
As so often happens, what goes around, comes around. Robespierre’s downfall is outlined in detail and serves as a warning to political and other leaders whose extremist views are imposed on people.
Robespierre was only 36 when he died, sent to the guillotine where he had sent thousands ahead of him. Only a few months before, this pale and fragile man, formal, anxious to the point of paranoia, steeled by deep-held principles, had held centre place in the new Festival of the Supreme Being, wearing his sky-blue coat and decreeing a new religion for France. Robespierre and the Revolution were inseparable: a single inflexible tyrant. But what turned a shy young lawyer into the living embodiment of the Terror at its most violent? Admirers called him 'the great incorruptible'; critics dubbed him…
France has always been my special inspiration in life and I am lucky to have made a career writing about its history. Many of my books are framed in a long-term perspective. Paris: Biography of a City (2004) and The Cambridge Illustrated History of France (1994), for example, take the story back to the earliest times and comes up to the present. Wanting a complete change and a new challenge, I shifted focus dramatically in my current book: the history of a city in a single day – the dramatic day in the French Revolution when the Parisians overthrew Maximilien Robespierre.
Jordan’s is probably the most elegantly written of the five studies and stands out for providing a particularly generous allocation of space to Robespierre’s voice, telling the story of his life as much as possible through his own words. At the same time, Jordan’s intellectual biography is quietly attentive to providing a sense of the complex political environment in which any French revolutionary statesman had to act.
In changing forever the political landscape of the modern world, the French Revolution was driven by a new personality: the confirmed, self-aware revolutionary. Maximilien Robespierre originated the role, inspiring such devoted twentieth-century disciples as Lenin—who deemed Robespierre a Bolshevik avant la lettre.
Although he dominated the Committee for Public Safety only during the last year of his life, Robespierre was the Revolution in flesh and blood. He embodies its ideological essence, its unprecedented extremes, its absolutist virtues and vices; he incarnated a new, completely politicized self to lead a new, wholly regenerated society.
I'm fascinated by the potential of teenagers. The teen years are full of passion and energy. It's a time of seeing injustice and recognizing inequality. For some young people, it becomes imperative to make the world a better place. My maternal grandparents joined the Communist Party when they were teenagers. They were deeply committed to making the world a better place, but it was a commitment that affected all of their decisions. They were saving the world—what happened with their children was of little consequence. Therefore the books on my list reflect my interest in teenage radicals, as well as the fate of children who grow up under a system of radical beliefs.
Cathy Wilkerson was one of The Weather Underground. She became notorious because The Weather Underground was using her father’s townhouse in Greenwich Village when a bomb was accidentally detonated, killing three people and destroyed the building.
What I love about this book is that it is by a woman in the movement. Most of the people who have written about The Weatherman and the various radical movements of the sixties are men and they are writing from a very different perspective. The women in the movement were dealing not only with their desire to end the war and overturn the government, but with pushing for a feminist revolution amongside their male comrades.
Wilkerson reflects on her radicalization as a teenager, on joining the movement, and on her struggles within the movement. The book makes dynamic reading for anyone interested in social change.
Flying Close to the Sun is the stunning memoir of a white middle-class girl from Connecticut who became a member of the Weather Underground, one of the most notorious groups of the 1960s. Cathy Wilkerson, who famously escaped the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, here wrestles with the legacy of the movement, at times finding contradictions that many others have avoided: the absence of women’s voices then, and in the retelling; the incompetence and the egos; the hundreds of bombs detonated in protest which caused little loss of life but which were also ineffective in fomenting revolution. In searching for new…
I was a teenager when I discovered that my grandfather was an Irish rebel during the War of Independence. As a Canadian, I was astounded by the stories he told me when we were alone during my first visit to Dublin. At 16, I promised him I would write a book about him. Alas, he was long gone when I got started. Researching, I would think of him, whispering anecdotes to me he never told his children. I discovered the stories were much worse than he let on. I could not stop until I got the whole story down on paper. I think he is smiling.
Frank O'Connor is one of Ireland's most famous writers of short stories. I love that he took on this story about a beloved rebel leader and did so with all of the attention to detail and deep insight into characters that he is known for. I also love that his own affection and admiration of the man shines through even when trying to be dispassionate and unbiased and tell the bad with the good. It matters not.
His love for the man resonates across every type of action Collins takes, good, bad, or ugly. O'Connor opens a window into a nation's deep regard and tragic loss of the fearless man who convinced everyone freedom could be pried from the British and then set about to do it.
Re-issued with an introduction by Neil Jordan, 'The Big Fellow' is the 1937 biography of the famed Irish leader Michael Collins by acclaimed author Frank O'Connor. It is an uncompromising but humane study of Collins, whose stature and genius O'Connor recognised. A masterly, evocative portrait of one of Ireland's most charismatic figures, 'The Big Fellow' covers the period of Collins' life from the Easter Rising in 1916 to his death in 1922 during the Irish Civil War.
The author, having served with the Anti-Treaty IRA during the Irish Civil War, wrote 'The Big Fellow' as a form of reparation over…
Americans can be crazy, but at their best they have an outrageous, defiant Bugs-Bunny-esque candor and optimism I admire as a foreigner. This is an extremely silly book about a deposed princess in Seattle who falls in love with an outlaw arsonist, symbolized by a pack of cigarettes and pyramids, possibly or possibly not inspired by an ancient alien race of red-heads. Add in the narrator continually complaining about his typewriter. None of this chaos and randomness makes much sense when I describe it, but imagine a warmer, happier version of Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49. Sign me up for all the postmodern trickery and authors-arguing-with-characters, when it's done with heart and wit.
Still Life with Woodpecker is sort of a love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes. It reveals the purpose of the moon, explains the difference between criminals and outlaws, examines the conflict between social activism and romantic individualism, and paints a portrait of contemporary society that includes powerful Arabs, exiled royalty, and pregnant cheerleaders. It also deals with the problem of redheads.
I was drawn into the study of medieval history through an interest in chivalry and this led to a PhD and various publications on the career and household of Edward the Black Prince (1330-76). He lived through the heart of what’s become known as the late medieval crisis: a period which many contemporaries thought was a prelude to the apocalypse. I’ve been teaching and writing about this period for more than 20 years now and remain fascinated by the contrasts between creativity and utter devastation that characterise the later middle ages.
Rees Davies was one of the first historians to seek to explore the histories of Britain and Ireland as both unique and intertwined narratives. Although this book focuses on the Welsh revolt of the early 15th century it shows the author’s formidable understanding of the relationship between England and Wales in the century after the Edwardian conquest. An object lesson in academic history written with the general reader in mind.
Owain Glyn Dwr is arguably the most famous figure in the history of Wales. His revolt (1400-1409) was the last major Welsh rebellion against English rule. It established a measure of unity such as Wales had never previously experienced and generated a remarkable vision of Wales as an independent country with its own native prince, its own church, and its own universities. In the event, Owain's rebellion was defeated or, perhaps more correctly, burnt itself out. But Owain himself was not captured; and soon after his death he became a legendary hero among the Welsh people. In more recent times…
I have spent much of my adult life studying the French Revolution with students who, like me, are engrossed by the drama, successes and tragedies of the Revolution, and the scale of the attempts to arrest or reverse it. Why and how did an apparently stable regime collapse in 1789? Why did it prove to be so difficult to stabilize a new order? How could claims to “liberty” and “equality” be balanced? And why was there a period of “terror” in 1793-94? When the Revolution was finally over, how had France and other parts of the world been changed? The answers to those questions remain open and continue to fascinate.
After 1792 French revolutionaries had to confront European armies and internal counter-revolution in a battle for the survival of the Revolution – and their own lives. The Jacobins saved the Revolution, but an enormous cost in human life. Marisa Linton takes us inside the personal dimensions of this deadly struggle, examining how personal friendships and alliances among revolutionary leaders disintegrated into recrimination and killings. By the Year II (1793-94) the policies of “terror” unleashed at the armed enemies of the Revolution had been extended to other revolutionaries believed to lack the authenticity necessary to the practice of republican “virtue”. Linton unravels the deadly logic of suspicion at a time of violence and acute fear which underpinned this “politicians’ terror”.
Choosing Terror: Virtue, Friendship and Authenticity in the French Revolution examines the leaders of the French Revolution - Robespierre and his fellow Jacobins - and particularly the gradual process whereby many of them came to 'choose terror'. These men led the Jacobin Club between 1789 and 1794, and were attempting to establish new democratic politics in France. Exploring revolutionary politics through the eyes of these leaders, and against a political backdrop of a series of traumatic events, wars, and betrayals, Marisa Linton portrays the Jacobins as complex human beings who were influenced by emotions and personal loyalties, as well as…
I'm a writer and journalist. I grew up in London’s Jewish community, and lived in Israel and Jerusalem for most of my life. I'm fascinated by the Mid-East region, its history, religions, music, cultures, and colors, and by Jewish history. As a result of my experiences as a soldier in the Second Lebanon War of 2006, and the Second Intifada of 2000-4, my focus on conflict became central to my work. After the 2006 war, I became a conflict reporter, and I've covered war and insurgency in Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Ukraine, Lebanon, and Israel/West Bank/Gaza for a variety of publications. I also like to focus on the ways war and conflict impact human lives.
Naipaul was one of the greatest English language writers of the last century, in my view. In this novel he traces the fortunes of one Willie Chandran, an Indian resident in the UK, who makes his way to India to join a rural Maoist insurgency against the Indian authorities. The book is a fascinatingly original description of and take on insurgent warfare, fascinating precisely because Naipaul is not a writer especially interested in war, or the usual themes that govern literary treatments of it. As a result, the parts of the book dealing with the insurgency succeed in a masterful and haunting description of the people involved and the conditions they are facing, while entirely avoiding the pitfalls of both sentimentality and cliché.
Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul’s magnificent Magic Seeds continues the story of Willie Chandran, the perennially dissatisfied and self-destructively naive protagonist of his bestselling Half a Life. Having left a wife and a livelihood in Africa, Willie is persuaded to return to his native India to join an underground movement on behalf of its oppressed lower castes. Instead he finds himself in the company of dilettantes and psychopaths, relentlessly hunted by police and spurned by the people he means to liberate. But this is only one stop in a quest for authenticity that takes in all the fanaticism and folly…
As a writer, I’ve found that learning about other writers and their processes helps me. Over the years, I’ve devoured the memoirs and letters of writers like Madeleine L’Engle, Audre Lorde, and Zora Neal Hurston. In 2006, when I started a writing program for young people in my city, I brought these writers’ words to use as writing prompts. When I researched my book, Mightier Than the Sword, I read dozens of anthologies to find people who used writing to make a difference in their fields—science, art, politics, music, and sports. I will always be grateful for those anthologies—because they broadened my knowledge and introduced me to so many interesting people.
This highly browsable picture book uses poems, quotes, and short bios to tell the stories of young change agents like spies Jacqueline and Eileen Nearne, student Ruby Bridges, and scientist Angela Zhang. Fourteen artists illustrated the book, providing readers with an exciting new image on each page. I love this book because it’s for younger children—and they are hungry to learn about history, too.
"Each poem and illustration shines with a personality all its own." -Shelf Awareness (starred review)
"This book has definitely made an impact on my life." -Kitt Shapiro, daughter of Eartha Kitt
Fresh, accessible, and inspiring, Shaking Things Up introduces fourteen revolutionary young women-each paired with a noteworthy female artist-to the next generation of activists, trailblazers, and rabble-rousers.
From the award-winning author of Ada's Violin and Lifeboat 12, Susan Hood, this is a poetic and visual celebration of persistent women throughout history.
In this book of poems, you will find Mary Anning, who was just thirteen when she unearthed a prehistoric…
