PREFACE TO PART 1
There have long been a great many works on the American Revolution, the French
Revolution, the beginnings of the parliamentary reform movement in Great Brit-
ain, and on Irish affairs, as also, though less known in the English- speaking world,
on the several countries of continental Europe during this revolutionary era. This
book attempts to bring all these national histories together. It rests heavily upon
the work of others, for except in certain parts, notably Chapters I, IX, XIV, and
XV, where I have been able to make use of researches of my own, it is built up from
monographs, special studies, and collections of printed documents made by schol-
ars in many countries over a long period of years. The book is therefore an example
of what we have come to know as a historical synthesis, and I have accordingly
thought it necessary to give detailed references, even at the cost of an unseemly
parade of documentation, some of it in languages which I make no pretence of
understanding and have been able to use only through the assistance of others. The
book may be thought of also as an attempt at a comparative constitutional history
of Western Civilization at the time of the French and American Revolutions; but
“constitutional” is to be understood in a broad sense, without much emphasis on
formal provisions, and in close connection with the political, social, and intellec-
tual currents and the actual conflicts at the time. Much of the book deals with the
nature of public authority and private rights, of law, sovereignty, and political rep-
resentation—or with liberty and equality, and with “fraternity” also, if fraternity be
taken to mean the sense of equal membership in the community.
Naturally in the preparation of such a work I have incurred more than the usual
number of obligations. Colleagues at Princeton and elsewhere have lent their as-
sistance, either by calling my attention to writings that I would otherwise have
missed, or by reading and criticizing particular chapters. I have learned a good deal
also from my students, from college seniors to authors of doctoral dissertations.
Whether as students, or in some cases as research assistants, they have surveyed
materials for me or made studies of their own from which I have appropriated use-
ful items, and in more than one case they have saved me from outright errors.
There are some eight persons to whom I am indebted for reading Scandinavian
and East European languages. In particular I wish to thank my colleague, Profes-
sor W. F. Craven of Princeton, for his continuing help in the problems of the
American Revolution; Professors Hans Rosenberg, Jerome Blum, C. G. Sellers,