French Revolution — Bunk History

A 1797 map of New York City.

The Black Cockade and the Tricolor

Space and place in New York City's responses to the French Revolution.

by Mike Rapport via Age of Revolutions on March 4, 2024

Painting of Jedidiah Morse with the Illuminati pyramid symbol over one eye.

Why the Founding Generation Fell So Hard for the Illuminati Story

They looked at France and said: “Make it make sense.”

by Jordan E. Taylor via Slate on October 24, 2022

A construction machine lifts giants stacks of paper money.

The U.S. Is Politically Bankrupt

For political reasons, powerful people don’t want the country to pay its bills. History shows all that could go wrong.

by Rebecca L. Spang via The Atlantic on October 8, 2021

French military marching in practice for the Bastille Day Parade.

The American Founders Celebrated the Storming of the Bastille

They understood that revolution means dismantling old power structures, violently if necessary.

by Zara Anishanslin via Made By History on July 14, 2020

The Revolution Is Only Getting Started

Far from making Americans crave stability, the pandemic underscores how everything is up for grabs.

by Rebecca L. Spang via The Atlantic on April 5, 2020

"Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky," a painting by Benjamin West (ca. 1816).

Flash Mob: Revolution, Lightning, and the People’s Will

Why French revolutionaries, in need of an image to represent the all important “will of the people”, turned to the thunderbolt.

by Kevin Duong via The Public Domain Review on November 9, 2017

Protesters storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

What’s the Difference Between a Rampaging Mob and a Righteous Protest?

From the French Revolution to January 6th, crowds have been heroized and vilified. Now they’re a field of study.

by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on November 18, 2024

The Phrygian cap derives its name from the ancient region of Phrygia, in what is now Turkey. Also known as a liberty cap, it inspired revolutionaries in both the Colonies and France.

The Paris Games' Mascot, the Olympic Phryge, Boasts a Little-Known Revolutionary Past

The Phrygian cap, also known as the liberty cap, emerged as a potent symbol in 18th-century America and France.

by Greg Daugherty via Smithsonian on June 18, 2024

Alexander I

Why Early American Conservatives Loved Russia

A conspiracy theory among New England Federalists led some to contemplate separating from the U.S. during the War of 1812.

by Nicholas Dipucchio via Made By History on March 27, 2024

Diners conversing at French restaurant.

Crème de la Crème

How French cuisine became beloved among status-hungry diners in the United States, from Thomas Jefferson to Kanye West.

by Kelly Alexander, Claire Bunschoten via Aeon on July 7, 2023

Portrait of Alexis de Tocqueville

‘A Great Democratic Revolution’

Alexis de Tocqueville left France to study the American prison system and returned with the material that would become “Democracy in America.”

by Lynn A. Hunt via New York Review of Books on November 17, 2022

Painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. By John Turnbull, 1818.

Why the American Founding Must Remain Central to Conservatism

An American conservatism which subtly or directly marginalizes the Founding is on a fast track to a conservatism at odds with America’s roots itself.

by Samuel Gregg via National Review on February 6, 2022

A police officer standing over a victim of the Sharpeville Massacre, South Africa, March 21, 1960

The Etymology of Terror

For more than 150 years after it was coined, “terrorism” meant violence inflicted by the state on its people. How did the word come to mean the reverse?

by Matt Seaton via New York Review of Books on November 17, 2021

André Michaux walking through a landscape of botanical drawings.

The Forgotten French Scientist Who Courted Thomas Jefferson—and Got Pulled Into Scandal

A decade before Lewis and Clark, André Michaux wanted to explore the American continent. Spying for France gave him that chance.

by Shaun Assael via Smithsonian on June 22, 2021

A library reading room with two stories of open stacks, walkways and ornate railings.

Andrew Dickson White and America’s Unfinished (French) Revolution

How the Civil War-era historian effectively invented a distinctly American tradition of historiography.

by Gregory S. Brown via Age of Revolutions on September 14, 2020

Numbering the Dead

A brief history of death tolls.

by Shannon Pufahl via New York Review of Books on April 21, 2020

How Media was Social in the 1790s

What would the French Revolution have looked like on Twitter?

by Jordan E. Taylor via The Panorama on September 3, 2019

Eric Hobsbawm, the Communist Who Explained History

Hobsbawm saw his political hopes crumble. He used that defeat to tell the story of our age.

by Corey Robin via The New Yorker on May 9, 2019

Political cartoon lampooning Thomas Paine and his beliefs

America and Other Fictions: On Radical Faith and Post-Religion

Thomas Paine, the most radical of American revolutionaries, perhaps most fully understood the millennial potential of the new Republic.

by Ed Simon via The Revealer on December 20, 2018

The Revolutionary Roots of America’s Religious Nationalism

America's sense of religious nationalism was forged in the same fires that ignited the profoundly secular French Revolution.

by Benjamin E. Park via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on March 20, 2018

The Slave Revolution That Gave Birth to Haiti

A rebellion against French colonial rule in 1791 led to a new kind of society.

by Laurent Dubois, Rocky Cotard via The Nib on February 5, 2018

"Liberty Leading the People," an 1830 painting by Eugene Delacroix.

Religion and the Republic

Looking to the French Revolution and the writings of Tocqueville for insight into Trump’s America.

by Philip Gorski via Public Books on November 14, 2017

A photo from the french revolution

“Terrorism” in the Early Republic

Originally, the term referred to a specific kind of foreign political violence.

by Jonathan W. Wilson via The Junto on January 6, 2016

Collage of James Madison writing, Justice Scalia speaking, White House and Constitution.

Putting the "Executive" in “Unitary Executive”

We cannot divorce the independence of the executive branch from its substance.

by John Yoo via Law & Liberty on June 18, 2025

The Surprising Origins and Politics of Equality

Should equality, instead of another political ideal, should be at the center of our politics?

by Samuel Moyn via The Nation on August 27, 2024

A painting of Napoleon Bonaparte standing in the center of the National Assembly.

Liberalism and Equality

Liberalism’s relationship to equality has, historically, been far from a warm embrace.

by Gregory Conti via American Affairs on August 20, 2024

A mob burning effigies at the Stamp Act Riots.

Illiberal Liberations

Nathan Perl-Rosenthal’s book can guide us through turbulent conversations about revolution, social change, and the founding of America.

by Regina Munch via Commonweal on June 11, 2024

Cover of "Age of Revolutions" book featuring soldiers' arms raised with swords, pikes, and bayonets.

Generating the Age of Revolutions

Age of Revolutions was happy to interview Nathan Perl-Rosenthal about his new book, entitled 'The Age of Revolutions and the Generations Who Made It.'

by Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, Bryan A. Banks via Age of Revolutions on March 11, 2024

Residents of Icaria, Iowa.

The 19th-Century Novel That Inspired a Communist Utopia on the American Frontier

The Icarians thought they could build a paradise, but their project was marked by failure almost from the start.

by John Last via Smithsonian on November 28, 2023

Portrait of Alexis de Tocqueville

Bourgeois Stew: Alexis de Tocqueville

In contrast to feudal society, where everyone, lord or serf, remained rooted to the land, and words were ‘passed on'.

by Oliver Cussen via London Review of Books on November 16, 2023

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