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Barricades: The War of the Streets in Revolutionary Paris, 1830-1848
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From Publishers Weekly
Harsin has written an exhaustively detailed, thoroughly researched account of the doomed branch of [19th-century French] republicanism, the montagnard movement. This hard left movement's predominantly male and working-class members looked back with fondness on Robespierre and the Reign of Terror; they embraced violence as a necessary means for bringing about revolutionary change and favored a top-down approach to governing. The movement was optimistic in July 1830, as Paris was rocked by revolution. The new king, Louis-Philippe, at first talked like a republican, but soon began governing by repression: he curbed freedom of the press and association, and immediately began cracking down on republican dissent. The montagnard organizations, whose structure and philosophy are skillfully detailed by Colgate historian Harsin, were forced deep underground. They hoarded weapons and stayed one step ahead of the police, awaiting the call to arms. There were several failed republican insurgencies during Louis-Philippe's July Monarchy (1830 1848), each followed by trials, repressive new laws and police crackdowns. Harsin uses newspaper accounts, court transcripts and memoirs to bring readers inside the minds of these desperate republicans and their doomed rebellions. Finally, in 1848, one of the most tumultuous years in French history, Louis-Philippe abdicated; a provisional government was established with republican leanings. Alas, the montagnard movement considered the new government too bourgeois, and another bloody insurgency broke out in July 1848. Once again, the montagnards were defeated; exile, prison and death were the fates of many of their leaders. Despite the drama, Harsin's narrative is recommended mainly for those with a serious interest in 19th-century French republicanism, especially its hard left aspects. 14 b&w illus.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
For this account of revolutionary republicanism in France, Harsin (history, Colgate Univ.; Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Paris) has employed a wide variety of research sources: newspapers, memoirs, court records, military and National Guard archives, and journal entries. From 1830 to 1848, Paris endured two successful revolutions, three unsuccessful rebellions, and seven assassination attempts against King Louis-Philippe and his family. Harsin provides details about the men behind these rebellions, who sought a better government than the July Monarchy, which was still a government for the elite. These men experienced strife and financial hardship but continued to fight. This vivid, well-researched account is unique in illustrating the dreams of working-class men through their own words, bringing a revolutionary era to life. It thus stands in contrast to H.A.C. Collingham's The July Monarchy: A Political History of France, 1830-1848, which covers the topic from a strictly political standpoint. With an extensive bibliography and notes section; recommended for European history collections. Mary Salony, West Virginia Northern Community Coll., Wheeling
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
14/11/2011
Victor Hugo's fictional account of the student uprising of 1832 in Les Miserables is so vividly written that it will always form the images of 19th Century French republicanism in the popular imagination.
Jill Harsin's barricades is a good historical overview of the same era. It moves a little too quickly and is drying written in parts, but since it's one of the only detailed accounts of the movement that existed between the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 in English, it deserves 5 stars.
Among other things, you leave wondering if all of those tourists snapping photos of Mont Saint-Michel are aware that all through the 1830s and 1840s it was used as a concentration camp for political prisoners.
August Blanqui, an important but forgotten historical figure (the real precursor to Lenin), is discussed in great detail.
12/02/2006
This is a very good history of the revolutionary turmoil in the period between 1830 and 1848, with the trials and tribulations of the Montagnard movement centerpiece to the account. The left seems discredited now, but if we consider the endless reactionary attempts to foment difficulties at the birth of republican government we can see the heroic quality of the period beyond the incidents of (endless) failure. This period also illuminates the writings and thought of Marx who is the child of this generation and a participant in this revolutionary drama at the rising moment of industrial/capitalist civilization. We ouwe a debt to this classic period when the conservatives resisted the birth of democracy every step of the way. Class struggle was no fiction in this period, and the naked combat, betrayal, and exploitation of class and class division in age of the barricades vividly illustrates the Marxian analysis, whatever one's view of Marx's later theories.
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