1. The quality that makes Jules Michelet’s history so powerful is what the French call souffle—literally, breath; figuratively, inspiration, creativity, energy. Michelet understood the French ...

In case anyone's failed to notice, this year marks the 200th anniversary of the 'French Revolution'. This is usually seen as a series of political and social events beginning with the storming of the ...

PHANTOM TERROR: POLITICAL PARANOIA AND THE CREATION OF THE MODERN STATE, 1789-1848 By Adam Zamoyski Basic Books, $35, 569 pages In the wake of the turbulent French Revolution at the turn of the 18th ...

Few historical subjects have received as much attention as the French Revolution, and yet the how and why of this seminal moment continue to fascinate. The events themselves are unfailingly dramatic, ...

To become ruler of the Isle of Malys, one must win the hand—or literal heart—of a male descendant of the royal bloodline, resulting in sometimes deadly consequences in this Continue reading » Suuban’s ...

The book I now publish is not a history of the French Revolution; that history has been written with too much success for me to attempt to write it again. This volume is a study on the Revolution. The ...

Illustration of the storming of the Bastille prison, in an event that has come to be seen as the start of the French Revolution, 14th July 1789.Hulton Archive / Getty Images The French national ...