The plural in the title is important. While many Americans associate the French Revolution with storming the Bastille and the guillotine, the revolution that began in 1789 continued in fits and starts, as one regime replaced another, until the defeat of the Paris Commune in 1871. Michael LaMonica has written an astute, witty, succinct and fair-minded account of events that still have their partisans—and repercussions that continue to be felt today. Revolutionary France helped spread ideals of the universal rights of man (and were largely confined to men) as well as the notion of revolutionary tyranny to impose freedom by force.
