The Terror of Natural Right: Republicanism, the Cult of Nature, and the French Revolution

Edelstein's book is a fascinating look at the ideas of natural right that inspired the French Revolutionaries in their drive to remake French society. Edelstein's argument is basically that the Revolutionaries derived a view of human nature from utopian literature of the eighteenth century which posited that natural law implanted in the "heart" was all that was sufficient to create a just, pristine society. Thus, no institutions were needed to create this regenerated society--indeed human institutions were the problem, since they covered up this pristine human nature. This is why, according to Edelstein, the Terror was not something that was produced by an extraordinary state of emergency in 1793, caused by international war, but was something that the Revolutionaries had been thinking about and planning in advance. This view basically meant that true human nature had no need of any sort of cultural, institutional or educational mediation: it was simple and obvious, and anyone who disagreed was either insane or evil--and the Revolutionaries treated their enemies as such. Edelstein finds this basically Manichaean view of the world to be present in Bush administration policies, but it is actually a feature of much modern politics, as far as I can tell: the drive to treat this or that institution as a mere convenience and wipe it away without a thought is an all too common feature of left and right in America these days. Edelstein's book is a fascinating read, and my only quibbles with it might be that he seems to deny too strongly any connection of Rousseau with this idea, mainly because he likes Rousseau's egalitarian bent, but I don't really buy it. This revolutionary view of human nature sounds Rousseauian to me. Another quibble is that, though he does distinguish between older views of natural right and the French Revolutionaries' ideas, I think he underplays this a bit. There really is no precedent in medieval or Scholastic views on the subject for what the French Revolutionaries, assuming Edelstein is correct, were saying. Lastly, I have read some of the literature that Edelstein looks at, but most of it I am unfamiliar with, and so I cannot judge his interpretations of these texts, especially those of Saint-Just, whom he seems to lean on pretty heavily. But in any case, this is a marvelous piece of scholarship, lucid, well written, and compelling. I recommend it to anyone interested in the French Revolution or in the history or modern thought.

Recommended to me by a professor of Intellectual History, as this is the area of History I'd like to get my Ph.D in.This book is full of insight on the French Revolution, and how Rights in the context of the French Revolution were drawn from Utopian Literature. Be warned that the book is heavy in terms of reading, and the theories can be seen as reworked. However, Edelstein makes his argument nicely, and it was an insightful read.

Dan Edelstein is brilliant.

Only for those with a strong stomach for arid prose and reworking of tired old theories, by a would-be historian. Edelstein tries hard, but even the strained prose cannot achieve his transformation into the Next Big Thing.

This book is as dull as they get; what a pity that the author did not dare to explore new angles on the subject.