The Days of the French Revolution - Christopher Hibbert Audiobook

Written by Christopher Hibbert
Read by David Case
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Recoeded books, 2000
Length: 11hrs 45min

Marie Antoinette. Napoleon. Louis XVI. Robespierre, Danton, Mirabeau, Marat. Madame Roland’s salon. A passionate throng of Parisian artisans storming the Bastille. A tide of ebullient social change through wars, riots, beheadings, betrayal, conspiracy, and murder.

Hibbert covers the French Revolution from the meeting of the Estates General to the emergence of Napoleon. This is roughly ten years of a country’s journey from negotiable concern to rampant homicidal psychosis. Because the author chooses to concentrate exclusively on the character of the major players and the tenor of the events they wrought - eschewing ideals and philosophies - that madness is granted center stage. Remove the over-arching political, financial and cultural rationales (all intellect, in essence) from the revolutionary equation and what we’re left with are men (and a very few women) struggling with the Oedipal dilemma writ large. I don’t imagine for a moment this was Hibbert’s intention - yet it is where the work takes us.

This is a popular history vividly told and highly readable, offering an excellent overview of the events which changed the course of history. If you know a lot about the French Revolution, it likely won’t tell you anything you don’t already know, but it would be a very good place to start for those just beginning the subject

The tape rip that I found was of very poor quality, some times muffled and sometimes too loud and needed cleaning up in Audacity.

A new recording with a new reader would be helpful. David Case’s off-hand style always sounds as if he is discussing something unimportant in a mens club.