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French Revolution Book Analysis

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French Revolution Book Analysis
The King’s Flight: A Revolutionary Run When analyzing the French Revolution, the idea of political transformation and citizen involvement play a huge role in actually understanding how the revolution altered from enlightened conversations in salons to its completion, resulting from the French “voice” uniting to halt The Terror that Paris had become. Reflecting back on this event, historians still debate on the specific moment this aristocratic revolution of 1789 turned into the blood-bath radical revolution due to the momentum and contingency that each event has on the overall Revolution. The two authors, Jeremy Popkin, and Timothy Tackett, explain their historical opinion on this period of French history, in which both share a similar standpoint on the event which sparked this radical phase of the Revolution. The clearly highlighted turning point for Timothy Tackett in When the King Took Flight is also represented by Jeremy Popkin’s position in A Short History of the French Revolution, in which this transformation results from the event that occurs on June 20th of 1791, in which, Louis XVI’s action to flee result in, a critical advance to the consequential way of thought in Paris that spreads throughout France, a spark into the ideals of uncharted French political reform, and in social tension that will develop from members of the previous 3rd Estate, which will lead to years of fear and damage the structure of France. The idea of strong-propelled rumors and logical opinions were unfamiliar to the 3rd estate members of France until the Enlightenment migrated these ideals to Paris, which helped establish the notion of questioning authority. Jeremy Popkin jumps right into the mindset of such bourgeoisie Frenchmen in which they will continue to justify their revolutionary actions from the king’s act, by stating, “They had risen up, they said, against a system of tyranny or despotism, in which all power was monopolize by a single man, the king, and by his

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