The capture of the Bastille ignited one of the greatest social upheavals in Western history, the French Revolution. Violence spread to the countryside, where peasants demanded the feudal system be ...

The French Revolution of 1789 not only propelled all of Europe into a war, but also touched off slave uprisings in the Caribbean. On Saint Domingue, the free people of color began the chain of ...

but the French Revolution was lead by the bourgeoisie from the start. In May 1789, King Louis XVI called a meeting of the Estates-General, to try and find a solution to France’s financial problems.

What everyone likes to remember about the French Revolution is that it proclaimed the rights of man, including equality for all under the law. By comparison, its slightly older and wiser sister ...