Introduction: History and the Revolutionary Imaginary

Abstract

This book is concerned with the French Revolution. As I am not a historian, and have neither the desire nor the talent to lay claim to the profession, it may appear strange, even presumptuous on my part, to have chosen to situate myself within this terrain. In order to allay any misapprehensions, it should be stated from the start that this is not a historical study, or at least not in the usual sense of the term. Indeed, any historian who approaches this work without temporarily shedding the habits of his trade will probably find its treatment irritating, if not simply baffling. He will claim that this study is not so much historical as philosophical, even metaphysical in nature; that the French Revolution, a seemingly concrete event, has become a convenient pretext for a reflection whose ties to empirical reality are ultimately somewhat tenuous. However, such strictures could be applied equally to the major actors in this historical drama, the revolutionaries themselves. For they saw themselves as living that unique, privileged moment when philosophy was realized within history, and when, as a result, history was no longer what it had been, and, indeed, could only now truly be called History. If then, at a first moment, this thesis seems to allow philosophy and history to coincide, I am in a sense only duplicating an earlier movement. Such duplication, however, is not simply a matter of repetition.