History 308H - French Revolution

Open to Seniors, Juniors & Sophomores only. The French Revolution provided a model for democratic political reform throughout the world, spreading new ideas about social equality, national identity, and rights for women, slaves, religious minorities, and other oppressed groups. Yet revolutionaries also killed thousands of people in the name of change. We will examine both the attempts to create a new, more just society and the spiraling violence against internal and external enemies, from the symbolic storming of the Bastille prison to Napoleon's rise and fall as Emperor. We will look closely not only at events in France itself, but also in Haiti and other French colonies in the Caribbean.