Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760-1800, Volume 2

With the publication of this second volume of The Age of the Democratic Revolution, R. R. Palmer concludes his patient and magisterial reassessment of the revolutionary ferment that stirred Europe and America between 1760 and 1800... While Volume I covered thirty-two years, Volume II covers only eight, and the detail is correspondingly enriched. The stage remains the same, a vast stage extending from Scotland to Sicily and from Moscow to the Mississippi. Manipulating the spotlight of attention with skill and precision, Palmer shifts the focus from country to country, clarifying the particular conditions and specific developments in each. Despite the frequent changes of scene the drama is saved from incoherence by its dominant theme, a theme that emerges more strongly with each chapter as the evidence supporting it becomes more cumulative and convincing. -- Geoffrey Bruun Journal of Modern History ... This is the most important book on the Europe of the French Revolution published in English for more than a generation. It marks the turn of the tide, demonstrating as it does the hollowness of the current conservative interpretation of the Revolution and it will discredit for the future all sloppy generalizations about Jacobins, demagogues, and revolutionary mobs... [Professor Palmer's] knowledge of printed sources is exceptionally thorough, ancient as well as modern, and his judgment of what is good and reliable seems unerring. -- J. H. Plumb New York Review of Books ... A work of historical synthesis that has no equal. -- Maurice Dolbier New York Herald Tribune