The French Revolution – not just a revolution in France

New HA short course, September–December 2025

 
The French Revolution (1789–1799) was not just a turning point in French history - it was a seismic event that reshaped the political landscape of Europe and reverberated across the globe. Its immediate and long-term consequences challenged monarchies and empires, inspired emerging republics, and ignited debates that continue to shape modern political thought. But what truly sparked the revolution – political discontent, economic hardship, or both? Did the revolutionaries achieve their goals, or were their ambitions only partially realised? How did the revolution affect France’s military and imperial ambitions? And crucially, why does this revolution still matter today?

In this new short course we’ll explore these questions and more through a series of thought-provoking lectures and discussions led by leading historians and experts in the field.

Register your interest here 

Confirmed contributors include:

John Hardman, author of Overture to Revolution: The 1787 Assembly of Notables and the Crisis of France’s Old Regime (2010); French Politics 1774–1789, (1995). Robespierre (1999).

Malcolm Crook Emeritus Professor of French History, Keel University. Author of Toulon in War and Revolution, from the Ancien Regime to the Restoration, 1750-1820 (1991); Elections in the French Revolution, 1789-1799: An Apprenticeship in Democracy (1996 and 2002); Napoleon Comes to Power: Democracy and Dictatorship in Revolutionary France, 1795-1804 ( 1998); (ed.) Revolutionary France 1788-1880 (2002). 

William Doyle, Emeritus Professor of History, Bristol University. Author of The Parlement of Bordeaux and the End of the Old Regime, 1771-1790 (1974), The Old European Order, 1660-1800 (1978), Origins of the French Revolution (1980), The Ancien Regime (1986), The Oxford History of the French Revolution (1989), Venality: the Sale of Offices in Eighteenth-Century France (1996), The French Revolution: a Very Short Introduction (2001).

David Andress Professor of Modern History, University of Portsmouth. Author of The Terror (2005), and editor a major collection of essays, The Oxford Handbook of the French Revolution, (2015) as well as the Routledge Handbook of French History (2024).

Alan Forrest Emeritus Professor of History, University of York. His recent books include Waterloo (2015), in Oxford’s ‘Great Battles’ series, The Death of the French Atlantic (2020), also for Oxford University Press as well as co-editing The Routledge Companion to the French Revolution in World History (2016).

Full details will be released later this month. This course is free to all HA members, and available for a small charge to non-members. Register your interest below to be informed when booking goes live.