Liberty, equality, fraternity - Jack Richard Censer

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity offers readers an accessible and lively introduction to the French Revolution that is also grounded in the latest and most sophisticated historical scholarship. It does so through two paths-a book and a companion CD-ROM. The book gives a brief but comprehensive narrative of the Revolution. The CD-ROM offers readers an unprecedented multimedia overview of the Revolution through images, primary documents, and song. Together they introduce readers to the fascinating story of the world's first great revolution.

The book, written by Lynn Hunt and Jack Censer, preeminent authorities on the French Revolution, includes selected images and documents from the accompanying CD-ROM, prepared by the authors with the support of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University and the American Social History Project at City University of New York. Features of the CD-ROM include primary documents (carefully chosen, translated, and placed in their proper historical contexts by a team of historians), songs, maps, and more than 300 images (caricatures, portraits, sculptures, and photographs of artifacts of material culture)-many previously available only to specialists in the field. These hard-to-find images, gathered from repositories in France and the United States, comprise an unparalleled and powerful visual record of the Revolution. Given the centrality of visual artifacts (imagery, symbolism, and print culture) to the history of the Revolution, and the inability of print reproduction to present such images with clarity and detail, the companion CD-ROM will provide an entry into the Revolution unavailable in any other form.

Jack Censer is Professor of History at George Mason University. His many books include The French Press in the Age of Enlightenment (1994) and, most recently, an edited volume Visions and Revisions of Eighteenth- Century France (Penn State Press, 1997).

"This fine volume, the collaboration of two noted scholars, provides a succinct and very accessible introduction to the French Revolution. Hunt (UCLA) and Censer (George Mason Univ.) present a cutting-edge course text. . . . The role of women in the revolution is stressed, and the chapter on France's colonies is a particularly welcome inclusion. . . . Complementing and enhancing the volume is a CD-ROM, which includes additional narrative, a fine collection of images and maps, and a selection of revolutionary music. The total package is ideal for course work, since it combines strong organization, solid scholarship, and brevity; it could thus be supplemented with additional, instructor-selected material. Of great utility and interest to today's students and their instructors."

-G.P. Cox, Choice


"By far the most ambitious work useful for teaching the French Revolution published within the last decade is the book, CD-ROM, and web site combination edited by Jack Censer and Lynn Hunt (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; Exploring the French Revolution). The integration of multimedia formats with more traditional text documents makes this collection an excellent resource for helping students understand the revolutionary period."

-Jeremy Hayhoe, H-Net Reviews in the Humanities and Social Sciences


"The book, as a whole, is well written, well organized, and thoughtfully presented. Each chapter concludes with a selection of key documents and there is an excellent accompanying CD-ROM, which contains some 400 texts, over 250 images, 13 songs, maps, a glossary, a time line and other useful materials."

-Philip Shaw, BARS Bulletin and Review