Francois Furet was acknowledged as the twentieth century's preeminent historian of the French Revolution. But years before his death, he turned his attention to the consequences and aftermath of another critical revolution-the Communist revolution. The result, "Le passe d'une illusion," is a penetrating history of the ideological passions that have fueled and characterized the modern era.
"This may well be the most illuminating study ever devoted to the question of appeal exerted not only by Communism but also by the Nazi and other fascist varieties of totalitarianism in this...

The Old Regime and the Revolution is Alexis de Tocqueville's great meditation on the origins and meanings of the French Revolution. One of the most profound and influential studies of this pivotal event, it remains a relevant and stimulating discussion of the problem of preserving individual and political freedom in the modern world. Alan Kahan's translation provides a faithful, readable rendering of Tocqueville's last masterpiece, and includes notes and variants which reveal Tocqueville's sources and include excerpts from his drafts and revisions. The introduction by France's most...

The French Revolution is an historical event unlike any other. It is more than just a topic of intellectual interest: it has become part of a moral and political heritage. But after two centuries, this central event in French history has usually been thought of in much the same terms as it was by its contemporaries. There have been many accounts of the French Revolution, and though their opinions differ, they have often been commemorative or anniversary interpretations of the original event. The dividing line of revolutionary historiography, in intellectual terms, is therefore not between the...

Revolutionary France is a vivid narrative history. It is also a radical reinterpretation of the period, and testimony to the power both of ideas and of personality in movements of the past.

Two centuries later, the French Revolution--that extraordinary event that founded modern democracy--continues to give rise to a reevaluation of essential questions. The ambition of this magnificent volume is not only to present the reader with the research of a wide range of international scholars on those questions, but also to bring one into the heart of the issues still under lively debate. Its form is as original as its goal: neither dictionary, in the traditional sense of the word, nor encyclopedia, it is deliberately limited to some ninety-nine entries organized alphabetically by key...

In his major work on communism, the international bestseller The Passing of an Illusion, the eminent French historian Francois Furet devoted a lengthy footnote to German historian Ernst Nolte's interpretation of fascism. Nolte responded, a correspondence ensued, and the result was the remarkable exchange presented in this volume. Fascism and Communism offers readers the rare opportunity to witness and learn from a confrontation between two of the world's most distinguished historians over one of the most serious subjects of our time. Each from a different perspective, Furet and Nolte offer...

Francois Furet needs little introduction. Widely considered one of the leading historians of the French Revolution, he was a maverick for his time, shining a critical light on the entrenched Marxist interpretations that prevailed during the mid-twentieth century. Shortly after his death in 1997, the New York Review of Books called him "one of the most influential men in contemporary France." Lies, Passions, and Illusions is a fitting capstone to this celebrated author's oeuvre: a late-career conversation with philosopher Paul Ricoeur on the twentieth century writ large, a...