Source: Law & Liberty
by Max Skjönsberg
“The French Revolution remains one of the pivotal events that still shape historical thinking and writing and is commonly seen as one of the watersheds of modernity. For Edmund Burke, it meant that “the glory of Europe [was] extinguished forever”; for Hegel, the climax of world revolutions; for Tocqueville, the triumph of centralization; for Marx and Marxists, the victory of the bourgeoisie over the feudal class. Marxism dominated history writing for much of the twentieth century until the French historian François Furet in 1978 presented a radical interpretation that shifted focus to the ideas of the revolution. But Furet had been anticipated by one of the great English historians and liberals, Lord Acton.” (05/29/26)