title: Sans-Culottes: An Eighteenth-Century Emblem in the French Revolution
author:  Michael Sonenscher 
description: "This is intellectual history as free jazz. Sonenscher rips and riffs through the links to be made between all manner of ideas across several generations of salon conversation and erudite writing. . . . This work's contribution . . . to illuminating the complexity of eighteenth-century French intellectual history cannot be gainsaid."<b>---David Andress, <i>Times Literary Supplement</i></b><br /><br />"Close attention to his text will be repaid with a deepened awareness of the variety and power of the political writing in circulation in the late monarchy. He succeeds completely in establishing that political life was in most respects richer and more full of nuance than we might imagine."<b>---James Livesey, <i>American Historical Review</i></b><br /><br />"<i>Sans-Culottes</i> is a challenging read, not least because of its style and structure. Sonenscher juggles a dizzying array of primary sources. . . . That said, the payoffs to reading this book are tremendous."<b>---Charles Walton, <i>H-France Forum</i></b><br /><br />"Sonenscher is brilliant. . . . He is equally path-breaking. . . . Sonenscher provides the most convincing account of the nature of the ideological divisions of 178991. . . . In providing an overview . . . Sonenscher shows what has been missed by historians of the French Revolution."<b>---Richard Whatmore, <i>Reviews in History</i></b><br /><br />"Sonenscher's insights into the moral and economic history of prerevolutionary France are wide ranging and extremely well documented; few can rival his breadth."<b>---Julia V. Douthwaite, <i>Eighteenth-Century Studies</i></b><br /><br />"As someone who has transformed himself during this period from a distinguished social historian to a leading expert on eighteenth century political thought, Sonenscher's professional career mirrors the trajectory scholarship of the Revolution has taken in his lifetime. . . . [T]he new book is the result of twenty-five years' patient advancing of what it is possible to know about the French Revolution and, at its heart, the elusive sans-culottes."<b>---Ruth Scurr, <i>Modern Intellectual History</i></b><br /><br />"[T]he author succeeds in forcing the reader outside the comfort zone of more traditional approaches in an intellectual tour de force that no historian of the Revolution can safely ignore."<b>---Hugh Gough, <i>Historian</i></b><br /><br />"Sonenscher's opera magna constitute an enormous achievement. Revealing a new face of eighteenth-century intellectual history and recovering a myriad of forgotten works, they are sure to be read--indeed to be used as references--for years to come."<b>---Carolina Armenteros, <i>French History</i></b><br /><br />"With deftness, wit, and great erudition, Michael Sonenscher traces the complex and unexpected pre-Jacobin history of the phrase 'sans culottes' to its origins in the rivalries and concerns of the Parisian salons. This probing history brings to life the patronesses, philosophers, wits, and hacks of the ancien rgime and illuminates the contending uses of ancient philosophy and visions of society and personal virtue that circulated among them. The analyses of competing Ciceronian and Cynical views of fashion, and of the gulfs between Rousseau and his self-designated acolytes, are particularly powerful. This book will be sure to transform irrevocably our understanding of the notorious emblem of Jacobinism."<b>Jennifer Pitts, author of <i>A Turn to Empire</i></b><br /><br />"With this book, Michael Sonenscher establishes himself as one of the most significant authors in the world today writing on the French Revolution. Focusing at the outset on the apparently unpromising question of how the revolutionary sans-culottes got their name, Sonenscher takes his readers on an extraordinary journey of discovery to the heart of the French Enlightenment and revolutionary politics. A brilliant tour de force, based on a dazzling command of eighteenth-century political and economic writing and razor-sharp analytical skills, this book will be required reading for any scholar or student interested in the origins and outcomes of the revolution."<b>Colin Jones, Queen Mary, University of London</b>
zlib_text: BOSTON
  PUBLIC
  LIBRARY
  
  The Emblems of Reason
  
  17
  8
  9
  The Emblems of Reason
  JEAN STAROBINSKI
  Translated by Barbara Bray
  University Press o f V i
  g i n
  i
  Charlottesville
  
  Translation Copyright © 1982
  by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia
  Frontispiece: Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825)
  Death of Marat. 1793.
  (Brussels, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique:
  Photo Giraudon)
  First published 1982
  Originally published in 1973 as
  1789: Les Emblèmes de la Raison by Jean Starobinski
  © 1973, Istituto Editoriale Italiano, Milano
  © 1979, Flammarion, Paris
  , pour Fédition française
  The notes to the present edition have been expanded by the author.
  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
  Starobinski, Jean.
  1789, the emblems of reason.
  Translation of:
  1 789, les emblèmes de la raison.
  Bibliography: p.
  Includes index.
  1
  . Neoclassicism (Art) 2. Arts and revolutions.
  3. France—History—Revolution,
  1 789—Influence.
  I. Title. II. Title: Seventeen eighty-nine , the emblems of r