The French Revolution.

THOMPSON, J.M.

$850.00

Item Number: 148388

Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1951.

Finely bound edition of this comprehensive history of the French Revolution. Octavo, bound in full modern morocco by Sangorski & Sutcliffe with gilt titles and ruling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, gilt ruling to the front and rear panels, gilt turn-ins and inner dentelles, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, tissue-guarded frontispiece, illustrated throughout, with appendices and an index. In fine condition.

James Matthew Thompson (1878–1956), a British historian and theologian, contributed significantly to early 20th-century scholarship on the French Revolution through a moderate liberal perspective. His book 'The French Revolution' (1943) presents the Revolution as a complex and often contradictory movement driven by a combination of Enlightenment ideals, economic hardship, and political mismanagement. Thompson emphasized the importance of ideological forces—particularly the influence of Rousseau and the concept of popular sovereignty—while also acknowledging the Revolution's descent into violence and authoritarianism. Unlike Marxist historians such as Georges Lefebvre or Albert Soboul, Thompson did not frame the Revolution primarily in terms of class struggle, but instead highlighted moral and intellectual currents as central to its development.