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About the Author

Suzanne Desan is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Works by Suzanne Desan

Associated Works

The New Cultural History (1989) — Contributor — 174 copies

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Common Knowledge

Birthdate
1957-09-10
Gender
female

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Fantagóðir fyrirlestrar um sögu byltingarinnar í Frakklandi og stjórnartíð Napóleons í kjölfarið. Stútfullir af upplýsingum sem Desan flytur vel og skilmerkilega.
 
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SkuliSael | 1 other review | Apr 28, 2022 |
This was an interesting, if highly biased and thoroughly detailed condensed look at The French Revolution.
Some of the subject matter is handled respectfully and impartially.
Unfortunately, whole sections of this book are riddled with, sexism, racism, slavery apologism, classism and antisemitism.
First the US War of Independence can't be compared to the French Revolution because the War of Independence wasn't a revolution.
A revolution is when power dynamics and class structures change massively in a country. That did not really or significantly happen in the US during the War of Independence. That happens in the US during the Civil War.
The irony is The War of Independence is really a civil war and The Civil War is the revolutionary war.
At the end of the War of Independence power dynamics in the colonies weren't restructured for everybody only the elite.
Contrary to patriotic/nationalist propaganda only land owning white men could vote originally. The law at that time further limited the men considered 'white' to exclude certain European groups and white Jewish folks.
So basically the rich folks in the US no longer paid taxes to Great Britain and no longer needed to follow British rules about expansion.
Everyone in the US who wasn't a land owning recognized as white man had their station in life either stay the same as in the case of white women and children; or get drastically worse as in the case of Black Free & Enslaved folks and the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas.
The War of Independence changes chattel slavery in the US in significant ways that ultimately lead to 'slave' breeding. Which is a horror and really escalates the separation of infants & toddlers from their parents and families. The horror is unimaginable.
In addition the War of Independence leads greatly disrupts Indigenous peoples of the Americas controll? rule? power? over their own lands. The Peoples and Nations that survived genocide are in vastly different areas than those that have cultural significance to them in most cases. Their sacred lands and even the remains of their dead are disrespected.
In the western world we are just accustomed to the propaganda that prioritizes the experience of white supremacists over the view of history from the victims of white supremacist violence.
***There are some interesting ideas put forth by the founding oppressors but applying these concepts to only rich white men so chattel slavery and genocide could continue uninterrupted isn't a revolution worthy of the word.***
Now The Civil War lead to Reconstruction which is in essence a 'Second Founding' or a true attempt at founding a 'free' country. It starts as a legitimate attempt that horrifically fails for the most part.
The Founding Oppressors are human rights violators and hypocrites. They didn't come up with the best government ever.
Bear in mind that 1 in 4 of the Colonial soldiers were Black. Enslaved Blacks were promised freedom in exchange for joining both sides of this conflict.
Some were given their freedom but very few.
The British were better about attempting to keep this promise but barely.
George Washington re-enslaved the soldiers who helped him win the 'revolution'.
So no that's not a revolution.
In France the 'revolution' doesn't start out with full freedom as the goal yet in the end women had rights they wouldn't have again until after WWII.
In the 1790's.
They first capitulated after a rebellion by Vincent Oge to allow Free Black people limited rights and eventually, after Haiti rebelled, they outlawed chattel slavery. They never enforced the outlaw of chattel slavery and even though other French 'slave" islands have small rebellions none resulted in island wide freedom.
The French weren't perfect or even close but they attempted to live up to their ideals.
In the US we still don't have democracy in 2020 for all citizens. Specifically the colonized 'territories": Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa all do not allow US citizens living there the right to vote.
To recap in 2020 we STILL aren't living up to the promises of the Founding Oppressors.
The US has never practiced democracy and the founding oppressors never intended us to.
The author who I think is a professor of history really, really, really loves Napoleon.
She seems to have a royalist view of the Ancien Regime as well.
She continually praises Napoleon. She presents his military coup d'etat as 'rising to power'. She acts like his narcissistic wars across Europe & North Africa were logical, strategic and not a complete violation of the sovereignty of the countries he was invading.
I really was ticked off when she refused to process Haiti through a realistic lens. No grace for Toussaint unlike for Napoleon.
I mean Toussaint was a jerk in many ways but he WAS a military genius. With significantly less resources he beat Napoleon's virtually unbeatable army.
The French Army ultimately have to lie and cheat to create a cease fire which enables them to cheat.
At which time France illegally steals Toussaint and his entire family.
In violation of their own treaty.
Also Haiti isn't just the 'first colony in South America' to break with Europe:
It's the most successful chattel slave revolt to occur during the history of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
This put Haiti in a totally different position than France was in.
First of all they were Black ex-enslaved or descendants of ex-enslaved West Africans, surrounded by hostile, racist and rabidly enslaving nations.
I think Toussaint believed that Haiti's best chance to ensure that the island stayed free long term was to be useful to the hostile-white-supremacist-European Slave-nations which surrounded it. These Nations have a racist history of banding together with other white supremacist nations, even their traditional enemies, in order to more effectively steal from Black and Brown peoples and nations.
So Toussaint paid formerly enslaved people for their labor, most assuredly not fairly and forced them to continue working in the fields. It is the limited freedom that Blacks will largely face across the diaspora for primarily white supremacist reasons.
This isn't a perfect a compromise or plan but isn't worse than Napoleon's betrayals of the French Revolution which the historian/author presents as 'establishing order' or a 'return to order'.
Ignoring that the revolution had pretty much settled down and the honeymoon period of military dictatorships is always brief.
Napoleon wasn't any different in that department. He quickly set about creating endless war and conquest in an attempt to hold onto political power.
A move those of us in the modern world should be achingly familiar with.
We don't know what Haiti might have developed into had European slave-nations not stolen and killed their leaders and staged multiple undercover coups. Not to mention saddling them with debt and restricting their trade.
Haiti is a mess because even today the old chattel slave trading nations can't handle a Black country founded by West Africans that white supremacist can not in anyway take credit for.
Also because France charged ruinous fees to Haiti for having the audacity to no longer be enslaved.
Fees it took more than a hundred years to pay.
For land that was never theirs and they were never entitled to.
Yet Napoleon was a complete turd and horrible human rights violator. He caused massive destruction across Europe and was on a narcissistic quest to 'rule the world' but she has nothing but praise.
She seems unable to grasp that while it's a tragedy that 40,000 people died during 'the terror' but Napoleon is estimated to have lost almost a million soldiers from the Empire alone. Not including the losses in the countries he invaded,either civilian or military. His losses were staggering and he ALWAYS needed more soldiers. Way more folks than 40,000 died under Napoleon so I fail to see how his coup d'etat was stabilizing. Not to mention The Terror was basically over when the Jacobins were guillotined. France was relatively stable when Napoleon made his coup d'etat. He didn't save folks from the terror, he WAS the terror.
It's just no one cares about the people he killed while the folks killed in 'the terror' were aristocratic and royal.
Royal and aristocratic deaths aren't more tragic than those whose lives the royals and aristocracy were putting at risk through, at best narcissistic theft and neglect.
Governments don't exist in a vacuum and when they screw folks over it's natural and normal for citizens to harm them back.
Also the authors attempt to pass off Napoleon's antisemitism as 'assimilation' worries is cringeworthy. He set up Gentile councils to 'monitor' Jewish communities rate of 'assimilation' into the French Empire. The author treats this like a valid concern failing to acknowledge that Jewish Communities weren't 'failing to assimilate', French society was rabidly antisemitic and refused to allow them to participate fully.
The folks who needed to be 'policed' to make sure that 'Jewish' folks 'assimilation' into the French Empire is smooth are the ones doing the policing.
Yet this is just glossed over and ignored.
I understand that some of Napoleon's methods of bureaucracy used are still used today.
Some of the scientific advances gained via Nazi war crimes are still used today.
Whatever advance in medicine or science doesn't in any way cleanse the Nazi inventor/finder/etc of their guilt or crimes against humanity.
The same is true for Napoleon.
We can only learn from history when we tell the truth about what was fucked up.
Also the author pretends like the 'insurgents' in various countries occupied by Napoleon's military dictatorship are partially responsible for the violence resulting from them fighting to be free.
Um, no there's not 'atrocities on both sides' when Napoleon illegally occupies another sovereign nations.
Is this historian serous?
Napoleon isn't entitled to force other nations to join the French Empire because he has a dream of ruling the world.
Napoleon and The French Empire are responsible for whatever violence occurs.
So the conclusions drawn by the author/historian/professor are shit takes and uphold sexism, racism, antisemitism, etc.
It's really too bad because this is engagingly handled and streamlined in an easy to process way.
… (more)
 
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LoisSusan | 1 other review | Dec 10, 2020 |

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