Not quite half the way through -- couldn't quite make it to the pictures. I recently read about Madame de Stael and am interested in the French Revolution. But there was too much detail in this book and somehow not enough about people. Or maybe too much about too many people. In any case, I couldn't connect. What made me finally give up was getting to 14 July. Now that the blood was beginning to flow and heads being put up on pikes and carried around town, I decided it was only going to get worse and so I stopped. To be picked up and tried again another time, perhaps?

Compulsively readable. Erudite yet clear. Vivid, entertaining, chilling, and accessible. One of the best works of history I've ever read. ( )

1000-page book that can be overdone at times, but also can be tremendously eye-opening in its discussion of the culture prior to the killings. Somehow no history class I ever took didn’t basically condense the French Revolution into the taking of the Bastille and the killing of the royals. This book blows that apart and gives a wonderful background to all the various moves amongst all the various players that went on for years. I never knew that the King was considered by the populace for quite a while to be an essential part of the Revolution.

The hysterical hatred for the Queen prior to her killing (pamphlets were voraciously consumed across the nation that portrayed ‘the Austrian Bitch’ being constantly engaged in orgies and sexual depravities of all kinds, sometimes including her own children) mimics the current hysterical hatred for Trump now. Smears ran rampant, with no concern for whether they were true or not.

“This is not to imply however that nothing of consequence changed as a direct result of the first phase of the French Revolution. The liberties enshrined in the Declaration of the Rights of Man for the protection of free speech
publication and assembly had brought forth a political culture in which the liberation of disrespect literally knew no bounds. It was by far the most dramatic creation of the Revolution.” ( )

Covers the French Revolution from preconditions to the death of Robespierre. The subject is practically custom-made for this reader-friendly narrative format: a series of key plot points with spectacular imagery including the Tennis Court Oath, the Bastille, various marches and riots, the guillotine, the fate of the royal family, Marat in his bath, etc. Schama layers in several asides that add flavour and a strong sense of the period such as Jean Jacob, a spectacularly old man being hailed as the spirit of the nation, and Theroigne de Mericourt dressed in flamboyant red, marshalling the women's march. Eight hundred pages makes for a long saga but it is never stale, and the many inserted images (paintings, portraits, propaganda) help break things up.

In high school I'd imagined the Revolution as the act of a united people claiming their rights and freedoms, a designed and concerted effort to establish something new and modern - a mirror image of the American Revolution from a decade earlier. Now I see a monarchy overthrown almost haphazardly when it didn't deliver on promises that it didn't realize it was making; first by a nobility grown heady on Rousseau with visions of a utopian society, and second by population that perceived themselves the victims of royalist conspiracy - a designed-to-be-poor economy that starved them, backed with inconsistent taxation policies inconsistently applied.

When the new government - almost entirely composed of the upper classes - tried to right these wrongs, only then did they perceive the difficulties involved. Their solutions were more drastic than anything the king had tried, leading to finger pointing and recriminations among themselves as foreign powers threatened and the economy only worsened. The population remained restless, swayed by whoever accused loudest. One at a time weaker opponents were eliminated in the Revolution's name - royalists first, then moderates - until only those extremists were left who were willing to create a police state that at last harnessed violence. Eventually the monster ate itself, and it only remained for a man like Napoleon Bonaparte to pick up the pieces.

Schama wears his opinions on his sleeve, sometimes in flat assertions that he boldly states run counter to prevailing views, sometimes in amusing sarcasm when noting strategic errors: "If [the king] had wanted to invent reasons for journalists to accuse him of considering the rights of foreign dynasts over French patriots, he could hardly have done a better job." Being a bit too demanding for an introduction to the subject, my highschool memories provided just enough background. Where those lessons offered the bare bones, this book is the muscle. ( )

One of the most enjoyable history books I have ever read, although I have heard rumours that Schama may not be one hundred per cent correct with some of the history. Citizens covers the French Revolution, from the spark to its place in history and involving all the major figures, including the great Talleyrand, surely everyone’s favorite historical figure. ( )