In Defence Of The Terror: Liberty Or Death In T... -

The book focuses on the emotions of the revolution —dread, fury, and sacred enthusiasm—arguing that these feelings were the driving force behind political decisions.

She attacks the "revisionist" history of scholars like François Furet, who view the Revolution through the lens of modern liberal democracy and judge it by "timeless" standards of morality rather than historical necessity. Critical Reception In Defence of the Terror: Liberty or Death in t...

Wahnich suggests the Terror was established to prevent massacres by the populace (like the September Massacres) by transferring the "right of vengeance" to the state. In Danton's words, the state had to "be terrible so as to spare the people the need to be so". The book focuses on the emotions of the

The book includes a long foreword by Slavoj Žižek. Some reviewers find his introduction ill-suited or more of a "movie review" than a historical guide, though others find it valuable for framing the "objective violence" of systems. In Danton's words, the state had to "be