Originally published on January 22, 2020 (Episode 144)
Introduction
The French Revolution’s principles of liberty and equality still shape ideas of people around the world of what is a just society. In his new book A New World Begins, Jeremy D. Popkin offers a riveting account of that revolution that describes the intricacies of its debates and the depths of violence that led first to constitutional violence, then to the abolition of the monarchy, and finally to an attempt to create and establish an entirely new society and—even—a new humanity. We meet Mirabeau, Robespierre, and Danton, and many others; we witness the vacillations, the failed escape, and the execution of Louis XVI; we see women demanding equal rights and Black slaves wresting freedom from revolutionaries who hesitated to act on their own principles; and finally we see the rise of Napoleon.
About the Guest
Jeremy D. Popkin received his B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley and holds an A.M. degree from Harvard University. When he was hired on a one-year contract at the University of Kentucky in 1978, the History Department secretary put him in what was then the department’s conference room, saying, “Since you won’t be staying long, it won’t matter.” Popkin is still occupying the same office.
Popkin’s scholarly interests include the history of the French and Haitian revolutions, autobiographical literature, and American Jewish history.
For Further Investigation
Alexis de Tocqueville, The Ancien Régime and the French Revolution (1856)
Jeremy D. Popkin, A New World Begins: The History of the French Revolution (Basic Books, 2019)
Jeremy D. Popkin, From Herodotus to H-Net: The Story of Historiography (Oxford University Press, 2015, 2019)
Jeremy D. Popkin, You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery (2010)
Listen & Discuss
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