The Revolutionary Self
Social Change and the Emergence of the Modern Individual, 1770-1800
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Since the eighteenth century, one of the defining concerns of modern life has been the tension between the self and society: we believe in a person's autonomy, but we also acknowledge that people are shaped by social and cultural forces. The Revolutionary Self delves into this paradox, turning to the eighteenth century as an era when new ideas about the self, society, and equality gained traction and new ways of living emerged. Lynn Hunt, the eminent historian of the French Revolution, traces the rise of individualism and how it transformed attitudes. In this thoughtful and surprising history, she examines women's expanding societal roles, such as using tea to facilitate conversation between the sexes and women pushing boundaries by becoming artists. Class also comes under stress, with the French lower classes laughing at printmakers' ribald portrayals of the elite to soldiers rising in the French army for skill and not pedigree. The invention of financial instruments at this time, like life insurance and the national debt, is related to the changing idea of national identity. Wide-ranging and thought-provoking, The Revolutionary Self is a fascinating exploration of the conflict between individualism and the group ties that continues to shape our lives today.
About this Author
Lynn Hunt is distinguished research professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. The author of numerous works, including Inventing Human Rights and Writing History in the Global Era, and a former president of the American Historical Association, she lives in Los Angeles.
Reviews
"One of the foremost living historians of the French Revolution... [Hunt] has produced an insightful, provocative study."
"[I]nvestigates an important moment in the history of the individual and society... [The Revolutionary Self] comes at an opportune time, reminding us that seemingly small new habits, whether drinking tea or befriending Chatbots, can lead to revolutions in our sense of self."
"Taking in subjects ranging from the reform of the French military to the rise of social science, Hunt delivers a work that stands comfortably alongside Natalie Zemon Davis, Emmanuel Ladurie, and other prominent Europeanists. An engaging work of history that looks to changes in daily life as a key to understanding transformative movements."
"With her celebrated insight and irrepressible curiosity, America's great historian of the revolutionary era explores a foundational struggle of modern life: the paradoxical effort to achieve equality and individual autonomy in societies revealed to shape and thwart them. At once clear-eyed and optimistic, the book is a bracing reminder for our own times that enormous changes can be wrought by the seemingly littlest of things."
"Lynn Hunt stands out as one of the finest historians in the United States or, for that matter, anywhere. Her new book combines virtuosity and erudition to show how two seemingly abstract and opposed tendencies, individual autonomy and social determinism, actually shaped lives through tea drinking, portrait painting, military discipline, financial speculation, and other unexpected activities during the eighteenth century."
"Historians often write of 'social change' as an abstraction, but in The Revolutionary Self Lynn Hunt shows, in thrillingly vivid detail, how the upheavals of late eighteenth-century Europe were both experienced and enacted by individuals. From the parlors of Scotland and England to artists' studios in Paris, from Napoleonic armies to the worlds of revolutionary high finance and politics, Hunt takes readers on a dizzying tour of the places and practices that reshaped the Age of Revolutions."
"Drawing on her unrivaled range of interdisciplinary interests, Lynn Hunt has woven together a diverse collection of stories to show how the revolutionary era created new possibilities for individual self-expression. Women artists, French revolutionary soldiers, and Swiss bankers come together in a vivid narrative from a historian whose work has inspired a generation of scholars."
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