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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 5 page analysis of a collection of Oxford historian Richard Cobb's essays on the French Revolution. The writer argues that each of these essays demonstrates Cobb's interest in the social aspects of history, rather than the political or the military ramifications of the Revolution. This being the case, the common thread that ties these essays together into a cohesive whole is Cobb's obvious belief that the spirit of the French people, which motivated the revolutionary upheaval, is most accurately discerned by focusing on the lives of ordinary people. Bibliography lists 2 sources.
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5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khcobbfr.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
social aspects of history, rather than the political or the military ramifications of the Revolution. This being the case, the common thread that ties these essays together into a cohesive
whole is Cobbs obvious belief that the spirit of the French people, which motivated the revolutionary upheaval, is most accurately discerned by focusing on the lives of ordinary people. Therefore,
the reader is far more likely to encounter a description of an eighteenth century pub in Cobbs essays than a discussion on the writings of Marat or Danton. An examination
of this text reveals Cobb to be a thorough, but engaging researcher, as he discusses a wide variety of topics, from the Parisian popular army during the Terror to the
counter-revolution in Lyon. It can be argued that the features evident in the first essay in the collection, "The Revolutionary Mentality in France," is representative of the entire text.
Cobb begins this essay by defining precisely what he means by "revolutionary mentality" and how a historian might go about discerning such a factor by looking towards the experience of
the common or "average" man. However, Cobb then makes the point that the "average" revolutionary is generally not the sort of person mentioned in the sources from this period.
Cobb argues, "In other words, is not the average revolutionary in reality the professional super-revolutionary, the man who quite deliberately goes about making a career for himself in the revolutionary
movement by not only always swimming with the prevailing current, but also, whenever, possible, a few lengths ahead of it" (Cobb, 1998, p. 7). He then discusses the stereotypes
of the "average" revolutionary that have predominated in the past. He argues that "The average revolutionary is neither the Gillray wretch with his red cap and squint, not necessarily the
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