The Age of the Democratic Revolution: The struggle

Front Cover
Princeton University Press, 1959 - History - 596 pages

For the Western world as a whole, the period from about 1760 to 1800 was the great revolutionary era in which the outlines of the modern democratic state came into being. It is the thesis of this major work that the American, French, and Polish revolutions, and the movements for political change in Britain, Ireland, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, and other countries, although each distinctive in its way, were all manifestations of recognizably similar political ideas, needs, and conflicts.

Volume 1 of this distinguished two-volume work, "The Challenge," received critical accolades throughout the world. It was the winner of the Bancroft Prize in 1960 and was called "one of the classic works of American historical scholarship" (Key Reporter) and a book which "will enlarge and clarify our understanding of modern Western history. It will re-emphasize the strength and vitality of the roots that supported the growth of democracy in the Old and New Worlds" (New York Times). "Occasionally a historical work appears which, by synthesis of much previous specialized work and by intelligent reflection upon the whole, makes events of the past click into a new pattern and assume fresh meaning. Professor Palmer's book is such a work" (American Historical Review).

"The Challenge" took the story to the eve of the French Revolutionary wars; Volume 2, "The Struggle" continues the account to 1800.

 

Contents

The Issues and The Adversaries
3
Bastille Day 1792
5
Ideological War
10
The Adversaries
16
Shades of Doctrine
27
The Revolutionizing of the Revolution
35
The Second French Revolution
36
Popular Revolutionism
44
The Cispadane Republic
302
The Venetian Revolution and the Treaty of Campo Formio
306
Sketch of a Modern State
310
Politics and Vicissitudes of the Cisalpine
317
1798 The High Tide of Revolutionary Democracy
327
The Great Nation the SisterRepublics and the Wave of Cisalpinization
330
A Comparative View of the New Republican Order
338
The Republican Constitutions
346

International Revolutionism
50
Liberation and Annexation 17921793
69
The Submersion of Poland
86
The Survival of the Revolution in France
99
Gouvernement revolutionnaire
102
Reaction against Popular and International Revolutionism
113
The Moral Republic
124
The Meaning of Thermidor
129
Victories of the CounterRevolution in Eastern Europe
135
The Impact of the Western Revolution in Russia
140
The Abortive Polish Revolution of 1794
146
Agitations in the Hapsburg Empire
156
The Jacobin Conspiracies at Vienna and in Hungary 1794
164
An Addendum on Southeast Europe
171
The Batavian Republic
177
The Dutch Revolution of 17941795
180
The Frustration of the Conciliators
187
Federalists and Democrats
192
Dutch Democracy at Its Height
199
A Word on the Dutch of South Africa
204
The French Directory Mirage of the Moderates
211
After Thermidor
212
The Directory
214
The Sources of Moderate Strength
219
The French Directory between Extremes
231
The Throne and the Altar
244
Fructidor and Floréal
255
The Revolution Comes to Italy
263
The Beginning of French Action in Italy
270
Italy before 1796
275
The Kingdom of Corsica
284
The Cisalpine Republic
293
The Val Padana and the Bridge at Lodi
295
Christianity and Democracy
353
The Republics at Rome and Naples
365
The Roman Republic
372
The Neapolitan Republic
382
The Helvetic Republic
395
Revolution and Annexation
398
The Swiss Revolutionaries
402
Swiss Unity vs External Pressures
406
Internal Stresses in the Helvetic Republic
413
Germany The Revolution of the Mind
425
The Ambiguous Revolution
426
Mainz Jacobins and Cisrhenane Republicans
435
The Colossi of the Goethezeit
444
CounterRevolutionary Cross Currents
451
Britain Republicanism and the Establishment
459
British Radicalism and Continental Revolution
461
Clubs and Conventions
473
The Levée en masse of the People of Quality
483
The Abortive Irish Revolution of 1798
491
America Democracy Native and Imported
509
The Other Americas Latin and British
511
Which Way the New Republic?
518
The Impact of the Outside World
525
The Corruption of Poland
534
Democracy in America
543
Climax And Dénouement
549
The Still Receding Mirage of the Moderates
550
The Conservative CounterOffensive of 1799
554
The Revolutionary Rearousal and Victory
561
Two Men on Horseback
569
References for the Quotations at Heads of Chapters
577
Index
579
Copyright

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About the author (1959)

R. R. Palmer (1909-2002), who taught at Princeton University from 1936 to 1963, the last eleven years as Dodge professor of history, was a past president of the American Historical Association. His other books include A History of the Modern World (later editions with Joel Colton) and Twelve Who Ruled. The first volume of The Age of the Democratic Revolution won the Bancroft Prize in 1960.