Curated playlist
Historians of the French Revolution
- Mary WollstonecraftMary Wollstonecraft died eleven days after giving birth to the daughter who would write Frankenstein.
- Thomas CarlyleA housemaid burned the only draft of Thomas Carlyle's first French Revolution volume. He rewrote it from nothing.
- Alfred CobbanAlfred Cobban used a 1954 London lecture to call a famous view of the French Revolution a myth.
- Jean MassinJean Massin trained as a Catholic priest before he became a historian. He left that life in 1952 to work as a critic.
- Peter KropotkinAnarchist thinker Peter Kropotkin refused a cabinet seat in Russia's Provisional Government.
- Edmund BurkeOn the 28th of December 1792, Edmund Burke rose to speak in the House of Commons during the debate on the Aliens Bill. He pulled a concealed dagger from his coat and threw it to the floor. France, he said, had placed an order for 3,000…
- Eric HobsbawmMI5 blocked Eric Hobsbawm from a BBC job in 1945 over his communism. He later became a celebrated historian.
- Alexis de TocquevilleAlexis de Tocqueville was sent to America to study prisons. He went far beyond that and wrote a book on democracy.
- Hippolyte TaineHippolyte Taine failed his philosophy exam in 1851 after examiners rejected his essay on sensation.
- Jules MicheletHistorian Jules Michelet was the first to use "Renaissance" for a whole era.