AN ANALYSIS OF GEORGES LEFEBVRE'S: THE COMING OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Georges Lefebvre was one of the most highly-regarded historians of the 20th century – and a key reason for the high reputation he enjoys can be found in The Coming of the French Revolution.

Lefebvre's key contribution to the debate over what remains arguably one of history's most contentious and significant events in history was to deploy the critical thinking skill of evaluation to reveal weaknesses in existing arguments about the causes of the Revolution, and analytical skills to expose hidden assumptions in them. Rather than seeing events as driven by the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie – which then lost power to the urban workers – as was usual at the time, Lefebvre deployed years of research in regional archives to argue that the Revolution had had a fourth pillar: the peasantry.