The Impact of the French Revolution

The French Revolution embodied, in the eyes of subsequent generations, the emergence of the modern political world. It made possible a new understanding of class politics, secular ideology and revolutionary transformation which inspired, argues Iain Hampsher-Monk, the whole world-wide communist experiment of the twentieth century. In this authoritative anthology of key political texts exploring the impact of this period on the British experience, Hampsher-Monk examines the variety, influence and profundity of major thinkers such as Burke, Wollstonecraft, Paine and Godwin, along with the impact of other less celebrated contemporary writers.

• Includes the writings of major figures such as Burke, Paine, Wollstonecraft and Godwin • Author is a senior figure in this area and one of the founder-editors of the journal History of Political Thought • Explores all the key conceptual issues involved in the debates on the impact of the French Revolution

List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens (1789); 2. Richard Price: A Discourse on the Love of Our Country (1790); 3. Edmund Burke: Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790); 4. Mary Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790); 5. Tom Paine: Rights of Man (1791); 6. James Mackintosh: Vindiciae Gallicae (1791); 7. Edmund Burke: An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (1791); 8. Hannah More: Village Politics (1792); 9. William Godwin: Political Justice (1793); 10. The London Corresponding Society: Two Addresses (1793 and 1794); 11. Thomas Spence: The Real Rights of Man (1793); 12. Richard Brothers: A Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times (1794); 11. Edmund Burke: Two Letters on a Regicide Peace (1796); 12. John Thelwall: The Rights of Nature against the Usurpations of Establishments (1796); Index.

\'… advanced students and specialists should not ignore it. Hampsher-Monk has managed to place between a single set of covers a book that is at once an excellent introduction to it\'s subject for an undergraduate target audience, a welcome guide to recent revolutionary scholarship that is full of suggestions for further reading, and a valuable collection of primary texts.\' British Journal for the History of Philosophy

\'… undergraduate and postgraduate students … will find Hampsher-Monk\'s edition to be a highly informative guide to one of the most fascinating periods in the history of British political thought. It will also be of interest to tutors and researchers dealing with the issues of Britain\'s intellectual history, the development of modern political thought and the intellectual impact of the French revolution on European conceptual history. An obvious advantage of this edition is its comprehensive approach in the presentation of individual texts, as well as the dialogical dynamic that it introduces between the texts. … This book gives the reader an opportunity to gain an overall perspective into the broad political spectrum of opinions represented in Britain at that time …\' Political Studies Review