Fatal Purity
Robespierre and the French Revolution
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
'A truly remarkable writer, one of the most gifted non-fiction authors alive' Simon Schama, Financial Times
Robespierre was only thirty-six when he died, sent to the guillotine where he had sent thousands ahead of him. Robespierre and the Revolution were inseparable: a single inflexible tyrant. But what turned a shy young lawyer into the living embodiment of the Terror at its most violent? Admirers called him 'the great incorruptible'; critics dubbed him a 'monster', a 'bloodthirsty charlatan'.
Ruth Scurr sheds new light on this puzzle, tracing Robespierre's life from a troubled childhood in provincial Arras to the passionate idealist, fighting for the rights of the people, and sweeping on to the implacable leader prepared to sign the death warrant for his closest friends.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The short, violent life of Maximilien Robespierre was a mass of contradictions crowned with a supreme irony: this architect of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror would in July 1794 be executed by the same guillotine to which he had consigned so many others. Cambridge University historian Scurr says she has tried to write a biography that expresses "neither partisan adulation nor exaggerated animosity," but even she must conclude that with the Terror, he "kept moving through that gory river, because he believed it necessary for saving the Revolution. He can be accused of insanity and inhumanity but certainly not of insincerity." Robespierre can also be accused of being a revolutionary fanatic who hated atheists, and "became the living embodiment of the Revolution at its most feral"; a dedicated upholder of republican virtues whose hands were smothered in blood; a fierce opponent of the death penalty who helped send thousands to their deaths; and a democratic tribune of the people who wore a sky-blue coat and embroidered waistcoats so aristocratic they wouldn't have been out of place at the court of the Sun King. Scurr's first book scores highly in unraveling not only her subject's complexities but those of his era. 2 maps.
Customer Reviews
Brilliant
An exceptional recounting of the life and times of the French Revolution, personified in the name 'Robespierre'. This book at once presents a highly entertaining history of this tumultuous period (told through countless excerpts from primary sources) and demonstrates the integrity and breadth of the author's scholarship in this area. 'Fatal Purity' tells the story of a people struggling with an entrenched and oppressive governmental regime, and the power vacuum that remains once that regime is deposed. In light of the recent Arab Spring, the story of factional violence filling the vacuum with blood is all too chillingly familiar.