The Review of the Recent English-Written Publications on the French Revolution: “The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution” (2015) by Timothy Tackett and “Liberty or Death: The French Revolution” (2016) by Peter McPhee

Abstract. The review deals with examining the recent English-written volumes on the French revolution by American historian Timothy Tackett (“The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution”, 2015) and Australian scholar Peter McPhee (“Liberty or Death: The French Revolution”, 2016). Both historians similarly solve the problems of the revolution causes, the connection between the Revolution and the Enlightenment, the causes of the Jacobin terror. In both books the same research perspectives are seen, among which there are “psychological”, “cultural”, “feminist” and “microhistorical”. These “perspectives” are inspired by the progress of the French Revolutionary historiography in 1980–2010, which may be characterized by “the return of the political” in forms of “culture” and “language”; “the return of the social” in forms of feminism and “personal strategies” and the renovation of the social via psychology. The evaluation of revolution in both books is “neoliberal”, although the revisionist thesis on the absence of “revolutionary class of bourgeoisie” is accepted.

Keywords: French Revolution, causes of revolution, Jacobin terror, Timothy Tackett, Peter McPhee, historiography.