"The French Revolution -- like the Renaissance and Reformation -- is one of the great geological faultlines in modern history. Knowledge of it is essential to an understanding of the development of the modern western world. It was the Revolution which launched the assault on aristocracy, privilege and clericalism in France, and challenged the established institutions and culture of the ancien régime across Europe. But it went further, affecting every aspect of the citizen's relationship to the state, transforming society, and changing the nature and scale of warfare. After 1789, Europe could never be the same again. French visionaries, and French armies, carried the ideas of the Revolution across the continent. Yet, as D.G. Wright reveals in this key contribution to Seminar Studies, the French Revolution was riddled with paradoxes. A concern with individual liberty and the increased participation of the people in government co-existed with the consolidation of the centralised modern state, dictatorship and the excesses of the Terror. If the Revolution provided intellectual models for the subsequent revolutionary movements, it foreshadowed many of their horrific and inhuman manifestations too. Two million people were killed in the civil and Revolutionary wars between 1792 and 1915, and the agricultural, commercial and industrial growth of France was retarded for a generation. Dr. Wright tackles the many controversies surrounding these events -- when did the Revolution begin; what did it involve; was it necessary; and was its course inevitable or did it at some point 'go wrong'? He also reviews the arguments of leading historians, and analyses some of the key documentary evidence on which they have based their judgments"--Back cover.