Richard Cobb is one of the most active and influential English historians of France. During a long career of research and writing, his interest has ranged from the Revolution to Vichy. He is especially renowned for his seminal work on the popular movement and on popular attitudes and preoccupations during the Revolution, as well as on its provincial history. This collection of essays is written by his friends, and is dedicated to him. The essays reflect some of the issues that have preoccupied Richard Cobb. Focused on some less familiar corners of the history of the Directory and the Consulate, it is concerned with regional and social rather than metropolitan and political history.

This 1985 book presents a selection of ten of the most significant contributions to Faire de l'histoire, a major three-volume exposition of the fresh state of French historiography first published in 1974. All the essays were commissioned from historians representing the best of the 'Annales' tradition, including Emmanuel le Roy Ladurie, Francois Furet and Georges Duby. The first five essays concentrate upon the physical world, and deal with some of the more familiar aspects of 'new history'; the second half of the book is concerned with the unconscious world of mentalites, the network of belief, symbol and cultural practice that is attracting the attention of historians in ever-increasing numbers. In an introduction Colin Lucas places the essays in this collection within the long-term development of French historical study, and assesses not only its great strengths but also some of the doubts and dilemmas to which it has given rise.

The French Revolution continues to generate historical controversy. During the last thirty years, consensus on its meaning has disappeared. Scholarship and debate constantly reinterpret both the event as a whole and its constituent parts, changing our perceptions and understanding of it. Today the French Revolution is still being rewritten as history. In this volume, eight of the most distinguished scholars in the field present new interpretations of major themes in the history of the French Revolution. They explore areas of intellectual, political, religious, and social development. Two hundred years after the event, this is a major statement of current thinking on the Revolution. Its scholarly analyses will stimulate all historians of the French Revolution.