We Owe the French Revolution a Debt of Gratitude
How the power of the Jacobin idea changed the world.
On this day, 234 years ago, the people of Paris rose up to take history into their own hands. The memory of the Bastille’s storming, and of similar moments of revolutionary élan — from the “August insurrection” three years later to the assault on the Winter Palace in Petrograd more than a century hence — have bequeathed the Left a series of thrilling tableaux of popular triumph, imprinted into the public mind through representations like the paintings of Jacques-Louis David or the films of Sergei Eisenstein. Those images are a precious legacy — but they can mislead us if we’re not careful.
[Read the rest at Jacobin]