The Impact of the French Revolution Texts from Britain in the 1790s

This book is an edited collection of the major writings of British political thinkers and activists responding to the French Revolution: the latter provoked a more fundamental debate on politics than anything since the Civil War. Often identified as the defining event of political modernity, the French Revolution set the terms for political debate and ideals for the following centuries. Not only ideals but more pervasive political principles emerged in this turbulent period. A full student introduction is followed by excerpts from Price, Burke, Wollstonecraft, Paine, Thelwall, Godwin and others.

The French Revolution embodied, in the eyes of subsequent generations, the emergence of the modern political world. It made possible a new understanding of class politics, secular ideology and revolutionary transformation which inspired, argues Iain Hampsher-Monk, the whole world-wide communist experiment of the twentieth century. In this authoritative anthology of key political texts exploring the impact of this period on the British experience, Hampsher-Monk examines the variety, influence and profundity of major thinkers such as Burke, Wollstonecraft, Paine and Godwin, along with the impact of other less celebrated contemporary writers.

List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens (1789); 2. Richard Price: A Discourse on the Love of our Country (1790); 3. Edmund Burke: Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790); 4. Mary Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790); 5. Tom Paine: Rights of Man (1791); 6. James Mackintosh: Vindiciae Gallicae (1791); 7. Edmund Burke: An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (1791); 8. Hannah More: Village Politics (1792); 9. William Godwin: Political Justice (1793); 10. The London Corresponding Society: Two Addresses (1793 and 1794); 11. Thomas Spence: The Real Rights of Man (1793); 12. Richard Brothers: A Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times (1794); 11. Edmund Burke: Two Letters on a Regicide Peace (1796); 12. John Thelwall: The Rights of Nature against the Usurpations of Establishments (1796); Index.

In this authoritative anthology of key political texts exploring the impact of the French Revolution on the British experience, Iain Hampsher-Monk demonstrates the influence and profundity of major thinkers such as Burke, Wollstonecraft, Paine and Godwin: this imaginative selection will be essential reading for all students of the period.

Iain Hampsher-Monk is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Exeter. A founder-editor of the journal History of Political Thought, his many publications include the prize-winning study A History of Modern Political Thought (1994). He is preparing an edition of Burke's Reflections for the series of Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought.