The French Revolution and British Culture

This volume of essays by distinguished British and North American scholars examines British responses to the French Revolution and the ways in which the idea of the Revolution was mediated into British culture. The manner in which the culture of one country appropriates the culture of another is complex and is a process which develops over time. After the initial political impact of the French Revolution, facts and events were transformed and reinterpreted within British culture. For the modern intellectual historian, what is significant is the variety of ways in which British culture represented the French Revolution and assigned meanings to it. The Revolution exercised its greatest influence on politics and political thought, but it is equally possible to trace its presence in such diverse areas as economic and social history, historiography and sociology, literature, and political philosophy--topics which are all represented in this volume.