Was fired more by hostility to modernization, attempted or proposed, than by the will to speed it forward. Indeed, he argues, revolutionary violence Schama insists, was troubled more by addiction to change than by resistance to it.

Ideas, the Marquis de Lafayette and his equally noble friends were no exception and the reign of Louis XVI, Mr. Schama says was known in America as Marcus D. Far from rejecting the social and intellectual lessons of the Enlightenment, nobles echoed them: not least the gentleman Mr. Far from offering an obstacle to progress, the greatest modernizers in metallurgy, mines, shipbuilding or street Two-thirds of noble families had become ennobled during the 17th and 18th centuries: a nobleman was no more thanĪ successful bourgeois and capitalist enterprise among nobles was as vigorous as among their bourgeois counterparts. Neither stagnant nor reactionary, the French nobility,Īt least its most audible and visible members, were more open to new blood, ideas and ventures than they had ever been. The old regime was not old, nor did it act anachronistic, fusty or decrepit.

Schama, was no bourgeois thrust against stodgy despotism or anachronistic aristocracy. His arguments, though, are embedded in narrative. But nowhere more than here does he challenge enduring prejudices with prejudices of his own. Schama, who teaches historyĪt Harvard University, has committed other large and readable tomes.

Provocative and stylish, Simon Schama's account of the first few years of the great Revolution in France, and of the decades that led up to it, is thoughtful, informed and profoundly revisionist. Once hefted, however, and well balanced on lap, knee or chest, ''Citizens'' will prove hard to put down. Those who like to do their poring lying down will scarcely rush to take up this book. Section 7, Column 3 Book Review Deskīy EUGEN WEBER Eugen Weber, a professor of history at the University of California at Los Angeles, is the author of ''Peasants Into Frenchmen.''ĬITIZENS A Chronicle of the French Revolution. March 19, 1989, Sunday, Late City Final Edition

Citizens by Simon Schama