Need Book Recommendations on French Revolution and on Secularization of Culture

[LadyCalvinist]

Hello,

I am a history buff, and I would a few recommendations on some good books on the French Revolution, how the revolution affected the church, and in particular how a whole society went off the deep end.
I would also like a few recommendations on books on the secularization of culture. Charles Taylor's book is one I am considering, though I hear it is extremely dense, and as well as a book by Owen Chadwick on the secularization of Europe in the 19th Century.

 

[Ryan J. Ross]

I'd start with Chadwick and you might really like Vovelle's work written around the same time.

Chadwick, Owen. The Secularization of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century, is really a great book.

Others include:
Desan, S. (2006). "The French Revolution and Religion, 1795–1815," In S. Brown & T. Tackett (Eds.), The Cambridge History of Christianity (Cambridge History of Christianity, pp. 556-574). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Desan, Suzanne. The French Revolution in Global Perspective (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2013).

Van Kley, Dale K. "Christianity as Casualty and Chrysalis of Modernity: The Problem of Dechristianization in the French Revolution," American Historical Review (October 2013): 1081-1104.

Vovelle, Michel. The Revolution Against the Church: From Reason to the Supreme Being (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1992).

 

[RamistThomist]

Scott, Otto. Robespierre

 

[bookslover]

You might try The French Revolution: A History (1837) by Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881). Originally published in two volumes, it is now available as an Oxford World's Classics paperback.

It was one of the most influential books of the 19th century. Charles Spurgeon told his congregation in 1877 that he had read it several times. Charles Dickens kept a copy on his nightstand for bedtime reading for many years.

You might find Carlyle's writing style something of a challenge (he uses present tense verbs to give his narrative the vividness of writing in the "historical present"). But, it's definitely worth your time. And, it's historically accurate.

 

[Haeralis]

Carl Becker in The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers suggested that the French philosophes were quintessentially religious in their thinking even though they rejected Christianity. This is interesting, especially since Becker himself was not a Christian and had no personal vendetta against secularism:

"If we examine the foundations of their faith, we find that at every turn the Philosophes betray their debt to medieval thought without being aware of it. They denounced Christian philosophy, but rather too much, after the manner of those who are but half emancipated from the 'superstitions' they scorn. They had put off the fear of God, but maintained a respectful attitude toward the Deity. They ridiculed the idea that the universe had been created in six days, but still believed it to be a beautifully articulated machine designed by the Supreme Being according to a rational plan as an abiding place for mankind. The Garden of Eden was for them a myth, no doubt, but they looked enviously back to the golden age of Roman virtue, or across the waters to the unspoiled innocence of an Arcadian civilization that flourished in Pennsylvania. They renounced the authority of church and Bible, but exhibited a naive faith in the authority of nature and reason. They scorned metaphysics, but were proud to be called philosophers. They dismantled heaven, somewhat prematurely it seems, since they retained their faith in the immortality of the soul. They courageously discussed atheism, but not before the servants. They defended toleration valiantly, but could with difficulty tolerate priests. They denied that miracles ever happened, but believed in the perfectibility of the human race. We feel that these Philosophers were at once too credulous and too skeptical. They were the victims of common sense. In spite of their rationalism and their human sympathies, in spite of their aversion to hocus-pocus and enthusiasm and dim perspectives, in spite of their eager skepticism, their engaging cynicism, their brave youthful blasphemies and talk of hanging the last king in the entrails of the last priest - in spite of all of it, there is more of Christian philosophy in the writings of the Philosophes than has yet been dreamt of in our histories."