Why the French Revolution Matters
The storming of the Bastille was the opening act in a century-long upheaval that broke with the premodern world and finally put ordinary people in charge of their nation’s destiny. That’s the legacy of the French Revolution.
H. P. Perrault, Prise de la Bastille, 1928.
On July 14, 1789, the storming of the Bastille in Paris marked the transition of the French Revolution from an elite negotiation into a truly mass event. But what kicked off this insurgency and what does it have to do with left politics?
On the latest episode of the Jacobin Radio podcast Confronting Capitalism, Vivek Chibber and Melissa Naschek discuss the radical origins of Bastille Day, examine the class politics of the French revolutionaries, and challenge the old Marxist notion of a bourgeois revolution.
Confronting Capitalism with Vivek Chibber is produced by Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy and published by Jacobin. You can listen to the full episode here.
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