Historians Jules Michelet and Alphonse de Lamartine envisaged compassion and pity as vital forces that could shape history. They interpreted the outpouring of pity following the execution of Louis XVI as having a profound effect on French history in the nineteenth century. They both felt that, by killing the defenseless monarch, the Jacobins had awakened and unleashed tremendous sympathy that purified the monarchy in the public imagination, laying the psychological and moral groundwork for the Restoration. Surprisingly, they attributed the Restoration (...) to Jacobin pitilessness. However, they also traced what was for them the real failure - the moral failure - of the Revolution to the Terror and to the Terror's initial crime and founding act, the regicide. Politically, Jacobin mercilessness served the royalist cause; morally, it destroyed the Revolution and discredited republican ideology for decades to come. But not only was pity central to Michelet's and Lamartine's visions of nineteenth-century history and concepts of revolutionary and political morality, it also extended to their attitudes toward historiography. They envisaged pity as the basis for historiography and as the fundamental moral mission for the historian. (shrink)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ideas about society, culture, and government are pivotal in the history of political thought. His works are as controversial as they are relevant today. This volume brings together three of Rousseau’s most important political writings—_The Social Contract and The First Discourse (Discourse on the Sciences and Arts) _and_ The Second Discourse (Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality)_—and_ _presents essays by major scholars that shed light on the dimensions and implications of these texts. Susan Dunn’s introductory essay (...) underlines the unity of Rousseau’s political thought and explains why his ideas influenced Jacobin revolutionaries in France but repelled American revolutionaries across the ocean. Gita May’s essay discusses Rousseau as cultural critic. Robert N. Bellah explores Rousseau’s attempt to resolve the tension between the individual’s desire for freedom and the obligations that society imposes. David Bromwich analyzes Rousseau as a psychologist of the human self. And Conor Cruise O’Brien takes on the “noxious,” “deranged” Rousseau, excoriated by Edmund Burke but admired by Robespierre and Thomas Jefferson. Written from different, even opposing perspectives, these lucid essays convey a sense of the vital and contentious debate surrounding Rousseau and his legacy. For this edition Susan Dunn has provided a new translation of the _Discourse on the Sciences and Arts _and_ _has revised a previously published translation of _The Social Contract._. (shrink)