The Age of the Democratic Revolution, Vol 1: The Challenge by R.R. Palmer

The Age of the Democratic Revolution, Vol 1: The Challenge Reviews

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  Paige Bowers

  I probably would not have read this book if I hadn't enrolled in graduate school and decided to study 19th century European history. My academic advisor recommended it to me, all the while cautioning that it was big and a challenge to read. This advisor said you cannot understand the 19th century if you do not understand the French Revolution and so I accepted this challenge. At one point this challenge drove me to a two-hour nap.
  
  All the same, Palmer's book is an acclaimed synthesis that turns the usual Marxist interpretations of revolution on their head. He offers a revisionist theory of what occurred in the United States and then across Europe, closing with the revolution in France. If you can hang in there (Palmer's mind is fine, but his writing is turgid), you will be rewarded in the end. Me? I wonder what he would have said about the Arab Spring if he were still alive today.
  
  This book probably isn't for the general reader. But if you reeeeally like history, especially revolutionary history, you might find it fascinating.
  
  
• 
  Sean Chick

  Superb book! Works like this are what excite me, for Palmer is adept at seeing both the connections and differences between the various revolutions and reform movements that rocked the world in the 1700s.
• 
  Linda Munro

  
  
  This book was one of the recommended reads for the class in ‘The Modern World: Global History since 1760 course I am taking through coursera.org. I understand why it was recommended, it covers a great deal of the French Revolution and the overflow that captured Europe and America, there was a great deal of information in this book. The problem was, I felt that I was sitting in a giant auditorium and the guy from ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ that repeats in a monitone voice; “Bueller, Bueller….”
  
  This book held statistics and clues but lacked life. I believe that writer’s like this overflow into teachers and that causes a lack of interest in the subject of history. So let me sum up what this book was about, enlightenment and the worldwide struggle to continue forward, escaping from the tradition that refused to allow culture to advance. There is so much that occurs during the ‘Democratic Revolution’ that holds implications on today’s society that I believe everyone should at least read a well researched book on the era; for, even as badly written as Palmer’s book was (in my estimation) I was still able to retrieve important information that helps me understand how we got where we were as a society and who the people were that helped assure we did advance (although their tactics were far from civilized in most cases).