Cart
Free US shipping over $10
Proud to be B-Corp

Writing the Revolution Lindsay A. H. Parker (adjunct, adjunct, Northern Virginia Community Colleges, Reston, VA, US)

Writing the Revolution By Lindsay A. H. Parker (adjunct, adjunct, Northern Virginia Community Colleges, Reston, VA, US)

Summary

Writing the Revolution challenges the thesis that exclusion defined women's experiences of the French Revolution by exploring the life of a middle-class wife and mother of revolutionary elites, Rosalie Jullien.

Writing the Revolution Summary

Writing the Revolution: A French Woman's History in Letters by Lindsay A. H. Parker (adjunct, adjunct, Northern Virginia Community Colleges, Reston, VA, US)

Writing the Revolution is a microhistory of a middle-class Parisian woman, Rosalie Jullien, whose nearly 1,000 familiar letters have never before been studied. The Jullien name is not new to histories of the French Revolution. Rosalie's son, Marc-Antoine, known in the family as Jules, was closely connected to the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror. However, despite being the wife and mother of revolutionary elites, Rosalie led a private life. Connected to the Revolution in very personal ways, she was also distanced from the lime light because of her gender and her proclivity for modesty. Her correspondence allows readers to enter her private world and see the intellectual, emotional, and familial life of a revolutionary in all of its complexity. The prevailing thesis in the field holds that the revolutionary elite constructed the New Regime against women, effectively excluding them from the political sphere, although nearly every existing study of women has approached the subject through oblique sources and mostly male voices. Rosalie Jullien's long missives to her husband and son, however, document her relationship to politics as she explained it. Despite never seeking a public role, Rosalie developed a political identity that included a revolutionized understanding of womanhood. Writing the Revolution builds on the innovative scholarship on the history of the family during the Revolution and demonstrates how the family sphere was revolutionized even in cases where the wife maintained a traditional family role. Jullien's correspondence boasts many values as an artifact of the Revolutionary experience, of women's lives, and of epistolary culture. Rosalie demonstrates the individual's experience within the evolving structures of a modernizing state, family, and gender identity. The period covered spans from 1775 to 1810. A portrayal of Rosalie's early married life, and the decade she spent with her husband and children in a small town north of Grenoble, begins the book, and is followed by a chapter on the couple's reading practices and their views toward religion prior to the Revolution. The heart of the research focuses on Rosalie's life and experiences in Revolutionary Paris and her decision, in the aftermath of the Terror, to emphasize private, domestic life over politics.

Writing the Revolution Reviews

invaluable * Marisa Linton, French History *
Writing the Revolution is a welcome addition to the history of women in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century France, while also enriching our understanding of the Revolution as an individual and familial experience. * Mette Harder, History *

About Lindsay A. H. Parker (adjunct, adjunct, Northern Virginia Community Colleges, Reston, VA, US)

Lindsay A. H. Parker is an Adjunct Professor, Northern Virginia Community Colleges

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ; Introduction ; 1. The Old Regime ; 2. Reading for Revolution ; 3. The Beginning of the Revolution ; 4. Radicalization ; 5. Adopting the Terror ; 6. Thermidor ; 7. Generations ; Conclusion: "In Silence and in Shadow" ; Appendix: Rosalie's Library ; Timeline of the French Revolution and the Jullien Family ; Bibliography ; Notes ; Index

Additional information

NPB9780199931026
9780199931026
019993102X
Writing the Revolution: A French Woman's History in Letters by Lindsay A. H. Parker (adjunct, adjunct, Northern Virginia Community Colleges, Reston, VA, US)
New
Hardback
Oxford University Press Inc
2013-07-04
224
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a new book - be the first to read this copy. With untouched pages and a perfect binding, your brand new copy is ready to be opened for the first time

Customer Reviews - Writing the Revolution